.dt The Vicar of Morwenstow, by S. Baring-Gould—A Project\
Gutenberg eBook
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<xl>THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW</xl>
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<s>BEING A LIFE OF</s>

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, M.A.
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ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER
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[Illustration: ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER]
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<l>THE</l>

<xl>VICAR OF MORWENSTOW</xl>

<s>BEING A LIFE OF</s>

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, M.A.



<s>BY</s>
S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
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<s>NEW AND REVISED EDITION</s>
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METHUEN & CO.
<s>36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.</s>
LONDON
1899
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.ul
.it Transcriber’s Notes:
.ul indent=1
.it * Wherever an asterisk accompanies a name\
it is for the purpose of showing that the real name has not been\
given, either at the request of descendants, or because relatives\
are still alive.
.it Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); text in\
bold by “equal” signs (=bold=).
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Homme étrange, original et supérieur, mais qui, dès l’enfance,
portait en soi un germe de folie, et qui à la fin devint fou tout
à fait; esprit admirable et mal équilibré, en qui les sensations,
les émotions et les images étaient trop fortes; à la fois aveugle
et perspicace, véritable poëte et poëte malade, qui au lieu des
choses, voyait ses rêves, vivait dans un roman et mourut sous le
cauchemar qu’il s’était forgé; incapable de se maîtriser et de se
conduire, prenant ses résolutions pour des actes, ses velléités
pour des résolutions, et le rôle qu’il se donnait pour le
caractère qu’il croyait avoir; en tout disproportionné au train
courant du monde, se heurtant, se blessant, se salissant à toutes
les bornes du chemin; ayant commis des extravagances, des
injustices, et néanmoins gardant jusqu’au bout la sensibilité
délicate et profonde, l’humanité, l’attendrissement, le don des
larmes, la faculté d’aimer, la passion de la justice, le
sentiment religieux, l’enthousiasme, comme autant de racines
vivaces où fermente toujours la séve généreuse pendant que la
tige et les rameaux avortent, se déforment ou se flétrissent sous
l’inclémence de l’air.—<sc>H. Taine.</sc>
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.h2
CONTENTS
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CHAPTER I
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<sc>PAGE</sc>
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Birth of Mr. Hawker—Dr. Hawker of Charles Church—The\
Amended Hymn—Robert S. Hawker runs away\
from School—Boyish Pranks—At Cheltenham—Publishes\
his <i>Tendrils</i>—At Oxford—Marries—The\
Stowe Ghost—Robert Hawker and Mr. Jeune at\
Boscastle—The Mazed Pigs—Nanny Heale and the\
Potatoes—<i>Records of the Western Shore</i>—The Bude\
Mermaid—Takes his Degree—Comes with his Wife\
to Morwenstow | #1:ch01#
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CHAPTER II
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Ordination—The Black Pig “Gyp”—Writes to the Bishop—His\
Father appointed to Stratton—He is given\
Morwenstow—The Waldron Lantern—St. Morwenna—The\
Children of Brychan—St. Modwenna of Burton-on-Trent—The\
North Cornish Coast—Tintagel—Stowe—Sir\
Bevil Grenville—Mr. Hawker’s Discovery\
of the Grenville Letters—Those that remain—Antony\
Payne the Giant—Letters of Lady Grace—Of\
Lord Lansdown—Cornish Dramatic Power—Mr.\
Hicks of Bodmin | #20:ch02#
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CHAPTER III
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Description of Morwenstow—The Anerithmon Gelasma—Source\
of the Tamar—Tonacombe—Morwenstow\
Church—Norman Chevron Moulding—Chancel—Altar—Shooting\
Rubbish—The Manning Bed—The\
Yellow Poncho—The Vicarage—Mr. Tom Knight—The\
Stag Robin Hood—Visitors—Silent Tower of\
Bottreaux—The Pet of Boscastle | #47:ch03#
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.sp 2
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CHAPTER IV
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Mr. Hawker’s Politics—Election of 1857—His Zeal for\
the Labourers—“The Poor Man and his Parish\
Church”—Letter to a Landlord—Death of his Man\
Tape—Kindness to the Poor—Verses over his Door—Reckless\
Charity—Hospitality—A Breakdown—His\
Eccentric Dress—The Devil and his Barn—His\
Ecclesiastical Vestments—Ceremonial—The Nine\
Cats—The Church Garden—Kindness to Animals—The\
Rooks and Jackdaws—The Well of St. John—Letter\
to a Young Man entering the University | #78:ch04#
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CHAPTER V
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The Inhabitants of Morwenstow in 1834—Cruel Coppinger—Whips\
the Parson of Kilkhampton—Gives Tom\
Tape a Ride—Tristam Pentire—Parminter and his\
Dog Satan—The Gauger’s Pocket—Wrecking—The\
Wrecker and the Ravens—The Loss of the <i>Margaret\
Quail</i>—The Wreck of the <i>Ben Coolan</i>—“A Croon\
on Hennacliff”—Letters concerning Wrecks—The\
Donkeys and the Copper Ore—The Ship <i>Morwenna</i>—Flotsam\
and Jetsam—Wrecks on 14th Nov., 1875—Bodies\
in Poundstock Church—The Loss of the\
<i>Caledonia</i>—The Wreck of the <i>Phœnix</i> and of the\
<i>Alonzo</i> | #105:ch05#
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CHAPTER VI
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Wellcombe—Mr. Hawker Postman to Wellcombe—The\
Miss Kitties—Advertisement of Roger Giles—Superstitions—The\
Evil Eye—The Spiritual Ether—The\
Vicar’s Pigs Bewitched—Horse killed by a Witch—He\
finds a lost Hen—A Lecture against Witchcraft—Its\
Failure—An Encounter with the Pixies—Curious\
Picture of a Pixie Revel—The Fairy-Ring—Antony\
Cleverdon and the Mermaids | #148:ch06#
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.sp 2
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CHAPTER VII
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Condition of the Church last Century—Parson Radford—The\
Death of a Pluralist—Opposition Mr. Hawker\
met with—The Bryanites—Hunting the Devil—Bill\
Martin’s Prayer-meeting—Mr. Pengelly and the\
Candle-end—Cheated by a Tramp—Mr. Hawker and\
the Dissenters—Mr. B——’s Pew—A Special Providence\
over the Church—His Prayer when threatened\
with the Loss of St. John’s Well—Objection to\
Hysterical Religion—Mr. Vincent’s Hat—Regard felt\
for him by old Pupils—“He did not Appreciate Me”—Modryb\
Marya—A Parable—A Carol—Love of\
Children—Angels—A Sermon, “Here am I” | #167:ch07#
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.sp 2
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CHAPTER VIII
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The Vicar of Morwenstow as a Poet—His Epigrams—The\
“Carol of the Pruss”—“Down with the Church”—The\
“Quest of the Sangreal”—Editions of his\
Poems—Ballads—The “Song of the Western Men”—The\
“Cornish Mother’s Lament”—“A Thought”—Churchyards | #202:ch08#
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.sp 2
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CHAPTER IX
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Restoration of Morwenstow Church—The Shingle Roof—The\
First Ruridecanal Synod—The Weekly Offertory—Correspondence\
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with Mr. Walter—On Alms—Harvest\
Thanksgiving—The School—Mr. Hawker\
belonged to no Party—His Eastern Proclivities—Theological\
Ideas—Baptism—Original Sin—The\
Eucharist—His Preaching—Some Sermons | #218:ch09#
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.sp 2
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CHAPTER X
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The First Mrs. Hawker—Her Influence over her Husband—Anxiety\
about her Health—His Fits of Depression—Letter\
on the Death of Sir Thomas Acland—Reads\
Novels to his Wife—His Visions—Mysticism—Death\
of his Wife—Unhappy Condition—Burning of his\
Papers—Meets with his Second Wife—The Unburied\
Dead—Birth of his Child—Ruinous Condition of his\
Church—Goes to London—Resumes Opium-eating—Sickness—Goes\
to Boscastle—To Plymouth—His Death and Funeral—Conclusion | #241:ch10#

FOOTNOTES | #xxx:footnotes#
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<xl>LIFE OF
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER</xl>
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.h2 id=ch01
CHAPTER I
.pm ch-hd-start
Birth of Mr. Hawker—Dr. Hawker of Charles Church—The Amended
Hymn—Robert S. Hawker runs away from School—Boyish Pranks—At
Cheltenham—Publishes his <i>Tendrils</i>—At Oxford—Marries—The
Stowe Ghost—Robert Hawker and Mr. Jeune at Boscastle—The
Mazed Pigs—Nanny Heale and the Potatoes—<i>Records of the
Western Shore</i>—The Bude Mermaid—Takes his Degree—Comes
with his Wife to Morwenstow.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.4 0.7
<sc>Robert Stephen Hawker</sc> was born at
Stoke Damerel on 3rd December, 1804, and
was baptised there in the parish church. His
father, Mr. Jacob Stephen Hawker, was at that time
a medical man, practising at Plymouth. He afterwards
was ordained to Altarnun, and spent thirty
years as curate and then vicar of Stratton in Cornwall,
where he died in 1845. Mr. J. S. Hawker was
the son of the famous Dr. Hawker, incumbent of
Charles Church in Plymouth, author of <i>Morning
and Evening Portions</i>, a man as remarkable for his
abilities as he was for his piety.

Young Robert was committed to his grandfather
to be educated. The doctor, after the death of his
.bn 010.png
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wife, lived in Plymouth with his daughter, a widow,
Mrs. Hodgson, at whose expense Robert was educated.

The profuse generosity, the deep religiousness, and
the eccentricity of the doctor, had their effect on the
boy, and traced in his opening mind and forming
character deep lines, which were never effaced. Dr.
Hawker had a heart always open to appeals of
poverty, and in his kindness he believed every story
of distress which was told him, and hastened to
relieve it without inquiring closely whether it were
true or not; nor did he stop to consider whether his
own pocket could afford the generosity to which his
heart prompted him. His wife, as long as she lived,
found it a difficult matter to keep house. In winter,
if he came across a poor family without sufficient
coverings on their beds, he would speed home, pull
the blankets off his own bed, and run with them over
his arm to the house where they were needed.

He had an immense following of pious ladies, who
were sometimes troublesome to him. “I see what
it is,” said the doctor in one of his sermons: “you
ladies think to reach heaven by hanging on to my
coat-tails. I will trounce you all: I will wear a
spencer.”

In Charles Church the evening service always
closed with the singing of the hymn, “Lord, dismiss
us with Thy blessing,” composed by Dr. Hawker
himself. His grandson did not know the authorship
of the hymn: he came to the doctor one day with a
paper in his hand, and said: “Grandfather, I don’t
altogether like that hymn, ‘Lord, dismiss us with
.bn 011.png
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Thy blessing’: I think it might be improved in metre
and language, and would be better if made somewhat
longer”.

“Oh, indeed!” said Dr. Hawker, getting red;
“and pray, Robert, what emendations commend
themselves to your precocious wisdom?”

“This is my improved version,” said the boy, and
read as follows:—
.pm verse-start
‘Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing,
  High and low, and rich and poor:
May we all, Thy fear possessing,
  Go in peace, and sin no more!

Lord, requite not as we merit;
  Thy displeasure all must fear:
As of old, so let Thy Spirit
  Still the dove’s resemblance bear.

May that Spirit dwell within us!
  May its love our refuge be!
So shall no temptation win us
  From the path that leads to Thee.

So when these our lips shall wither,
  So when fails each earthly tone,
May we sing once more together
  Hymns of glory round Thy throne!’
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“Now, listen to the old version, grandfather:—
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‘Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing;
  Fill our hearts with joy and peace;
Let us each Thy love possessing,
  Triumph in redeeming grace.
        Oh, refresh us,
  Travelling through this wilderness!
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Thanks we give, and adoration,
  For the Gospel’s joyous sound;
May the founts of Thy salvation
  In our hearts and lives abound!
        May Thy presence
  With us evermore be found!’
.pm verse-end

“This one is crude and flat; don’t you think so,
grandfather?”

“Crude and flat, sir! Young puppy, it is <i>mine!</i>
I wrote that hymn.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon, grandfather; I did not
know that: it is a very nice hymn indeed; but—but
<i>grace</i> is a bad rhyme for <i>peace</i>, and one naturally
wishes to put grease in its place. Your hymn may be
good”—and, as he went out of the door—“but mine
is better.”

Robert was sent to a boarding-school by his grandfather;
where, I do not know, nor does it much matter,
for he stayed there only one night. He arrived in the
evening, and was delivered over by the doctor to a very
godly but close-fisted master. Robert did not approve
of being sent supperless to bed, still less did he approve
of the bed and bedroom in which he was placed.

Next morning the dominie was shaving at his
window, when he saw his pupil, with his portmanteau
on his back, striding across the lawn, with reckless
indifference to the flower-beds, singing at the top of
his voice, “Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing.” He
shouted after him from the window, but Robert was
deaf. The boy flung his portmanteau over the hedge,
jumped after it, and was seen no more at that school.

He was then put with the Rev. Mr. Laffer, at
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Liskeard. Mr. Laffer was the son of a yeoman at
Altarnun: he afterwards became incumbent of St.
Gennys. At this time he was head master of the
Liskeard Grammar School. There Robert Hawker
was happy. He spent his holidays either with his
father at Stratton, or with his grandfather and aunt
at Plymouth. At Stratton he was the torment of an old
fellow who kept a shop in High Street, where he sold
groceries, crockery and drapery. One day he slipped
into the house when the old man was out, and found
a piece of mutton roasting before the fire. Robert took
it off the crook, hung it up in the shop, and placed a
bundle of dips before the fire, to roast in its place.

He would dive into the shop, catch hold of the end
of thread that curled out of the tin in which the
shopkeeper kept the ball of twine with which he tied
up his parcels, and race with it in his hand down the
street, then up a lane and down another, till he had
uncoiled it all, and laced Stratton in a cobweb of
twine, tripping up people as they went along the
streets. The old fellow had not the wits to cut the
thread, but held on like grim death to the tin, whilst
the ball bounced and uncoiled within it, swearing at
the plague of a boy, and wishing him “back to skule
again.”

“I doan’t care whether I ring the bells on the
king’s birthday,” said the parish clerk, another victim
of the boy’s pranks; “but if I never touch the ropes
again, I’ll give a peal when Robert goes to skule, and
leaves Stratton folks in peace.”

As may well be believed, the mischievous, high-spirited
boy played tricks on his brothers and sisters.
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The clerk was accustomed to read in church, “I am
an alien unto my mother’s children,” pronouncing
“alien” as “a lion.” “Ah!” said Mrs. Hawker,
“that means Robert: he is verily a lion unto his
mother’s children.”

“I do not know how it is,” said his brother one
day: “when I go out with Robert nutting, he gets all
the nuts; and when I go out rabbiting, he gets all
the rabbits; and when we go out fishing together, he
catches all the fish.”

“Come with me fishing to-morrow, Claud,” said
Robert, “and see if you don’t have luck.”

Next day he surreptitiously fastened a red herring
to his brother’s hook, playing on his brother the trick
Cleopatra had played on Anthony; and, when it was
drawn out of the water, “There!” exclaimed Robert,
“you are twice as lucky as I am. My fish are all
raw; and yours is ready cleaned, smoked and salted.”

The old vicarage at Stratton is now pulled down:
it stood at the east end of the chancel, and the garden
has been thrown into the burial-ground.

At Stratton he got one night into the stable of the
surgeon, hogged the mane, and painted the coat of
his horse like a zebra with white and black oil paint.
Then he sent a message to the doctor, as if from a
great house at a distance, requiring his immediate
attendance. The doctor was obliged to saddle and
gallop off the horse in the condition in which he
found it, thinking that there was not time for him to
stay till the coat was cleaned of paint.

His pranks at Plymouth led at last to his grandfather
refusing to have him any longer in his house.
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.pn +1

Robert held in aversion the good pious ladies, who
swarmed round the doctor. It was the time of sedan-chairs;
and trains of old spinsters and dowagers were
wont to fill the street in their boxes between bearers,
on the occasion of missionary teas, Dorcas meetings,
and private expositions of the Word. Robert used
to open the house door, and make a sign to the
bearers to stop. A row of a dozen or more sedans
were thus arrested in the street. Then the boy would
go to each sedan in order, open the window, and,
thrusting his head in, kiss the fair but venerable
occupant, and then start back in mock dismay, exclaiming:
“A thousand pardons! I thought you
were my mother. I am sorry. How could I have
made such a mistake, you are so much older?”

Sometimes, with the gravest face, he would tell
the bearers that the lady was to be conveyed to the
Dockyard, or the Arsenal, or to the Hoe; and she
would find herself deposited among anchors and
ropes, or cannon-balls, or on the windy height overlooking
the bay, instead of at the doctor’s door.

Two old ladies, spinster sisters, Robert believed
were setting their caps at the doctor, then a widower.
He took an inveterate dislike to them, and their insinuating,
oily manner with his grandfather; and he
worried them out of Plymouth.

He did it thus. One day he called on a certain
leading physician in Plymouth, and told him that
Miss Hephzibah Jenkins had slipped on a piece of
orange peel, broken her leg, and needed his instant
attention. He arrived out of breath with running,
very red; and, it being known that the Misses
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.pn +1
Jenkins were intimate friends of Dr. Hawker, the
physician went off at once to the lady, with splints
and bandages.

Next day another medical man was sent to see
Miss Sidonia Jenkins. Every day a fresh surgeon
or physician arrived to bind up legs and arms and
heads, or revive the ladies from extreme prostration,
pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, heart-complaint,
etc., till every medical man in Plymouth, Stonehouse
and Devonport had been to the house of the spinsters.
When these were exhausted, an undertaker was sent
to measure the old ladies for their coffins; and next
day a hearse drew up at their door to convey them to
their graves, which had been dug according to order
in the St. Andrew’s churchyard.

This was more than the ladies could bear. They
shut up the house and left Plymouth. But this was
also the end of Robert’s stay with his grandfather.
The good doctor had endured a great deal, but he
would not put up with this; and Robert was sent to
Stratton, to his father.

When the boy left school at Liskeard, he was
articled to a lawyer, Mr. Jacobson, at Plymouth, a
wealthy man in good practice, first cousin to his
mother; but this sort of profession did not at all
approve itself to Robert’s taste, and he remained with
Mr. Jacobson a few months only. Whether he then
turned his thoughts towards going into holy orders,
cannot be told; but he persuaded his aunt, Mrs.
Hodgson, to send him to Cheltenham Grammar
School.

The boy had great abilities, and a passionate love
.bn 017.png
.pn +1
of books, but wanted application. He read a great
deal, but his reading was desultory. He was, however,
a good classic scholar. To mathematics he
took a positive dislike, and never could master a
proposition in Euclid. At Cheltenham he wrote
some poems, and published them in a little book
entitled <i>Tendrils</i>, <i>by Reuben</i>. They appeared in 1821,
when he was seventeen years old.

From Cheltenham, Robert S. Hawker went to
Oxford, 1823, and entered at Pembroke; but his
father was only a poor curate, and unable to maintain
him at the university. Robert was determined
to finish his course there. He could not command
the purse of his aunt, Mrs. Hodgson, who was dead;
and when he retired to Stratton for his long vacation
in 1824, his father told him that it was impossible
for him to send him back to the university.

But Robert Hawker had made up his mind that
finish his career at college he would. The difficulty
was got over in a manner somewhat novel.

There lived at Whitstone, near Holsworthy, four
Miss I’ans, daughters of Colonel I’ans. They had
been left with an annuity of £200 apiece, as well as
lands and a handsome place. At the time when
Mr. Jacob Hawker announced to his son that a
return to Oxford was impossible, the four ladies
were at Efford, near Bude, an old manor house
leased from Sir Thomas Acland. Directly that
Robert Hawker learnt his father’s decision, without
waiting to put on his hat, he ran from Stratton to
Bude, arrived hot and blown at Efford, and proposed
to Miss Charlotte I’ans to become his wife. The
.bn 018.png
.pn +1
lady was then aged forty-one, one year older than
his mother; she was his godmother, and had taught
him his letters.

Miss Charlotte I’ans accepted him; and they were
married in November, when he was twenty. Robert
S. Hawker and his wife spent their honeymoon at
Morwenstow, in Combe Cottage. During that time
he was visited by Sir William Call and his brother
George. They dined with him, and told ghost-stories.
Sir William professed his utter disbelief in
spectral appearances, in spite of the most convincing,
properly authenticated cases adduced by Mr. Hawker.
It was late when the two gentlemen rose to leave.
Their course lay down the steep hill by old Stowe.
The moment that they were gone Robert got a sheet
and an old iron spoon which he had dug up in the
garden, and which bore on it the date 1702. He
slipped a tinder-box and a bottle of choice brandy,
which had belonged to Colonel I’ans, into his pocket,
and ran by a short cut to a spot where the road was
overshadowed by trees, at the bottom of the Stowe
hill, which he knew the two young men must pass.
He had time to throw the sheet over himself, strike a
light, fill the great iron spoon with salt and brandy, and
ignite it, before Sir William and his brother came up.

In the dense darkness of the wood, beside the
road, they suddenly saw a ghastly figure, illumined
by a lambent blue flame which danced in the air
before it. They stood rooted to the spot, petrified
with fear. Slowly the apparition stole towards them.
They were too frightened to cry out and run. Suddenly,
with an unearthly howl, the spectre plunged
.bn 019.png
.pn +1
something metallic into the breast of Sir William
Call’s yellow nankeen waistcoat, the livid flame fell
around him in drops, and all vanished.

When he came to himself Sir William found an
iron spoon in his bosom. He and his brother, much
alarmed, and not knowing what to think of what
they had seen, returned to Combe. They knocked
at the door. Hawker put his head with nightcap on
out of the bedroom-window and asked who were
disturbing his rest. They begged to be admitted:
they had something of importance to communicate.
He came down stairs in a dressing-gown, and introduced
them to his parlour. There the iron spoon
was examined. “It is very ancient,” said Sir
William: “the date on it is 1702—just the time
when Stowe was pulled down.”

“It smells very strong of brandy,” said George
Call.

Robert Hawker’s twinkling eye and twitching
mouth revealed the rest.

“’Pon my word,” said Sir William Call, “you
nearly killed me; and, what is more serious, nearly
made me believe in spirits.”

“Ah!” added Robert dryly, “you probably did
believe in them when they ran in a river of flame
over your yellow nankeen waistcoat.”

The marriage with Charlotte I’ans took place on
6th November, 1824. On Hawker’s return to Oxford
with his wife after the Christmas vacation (and he
took her there, riding behind him on a pillion), he
was obliged, on account of being married, to migrate
from Pembroke to Magdalen Hall. About this time
.bn 020.png
.pn +1
he made acquaintance with Jeune and Jacobson, the
former afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, the latter
Bishop of Chester. Jeune, and afterwards Jacobson,
came down into Cornwall to pay him a visit in the
long vacation of 1825; and Mr. Jeune acted as
groomsman at the marriage of Miss Hawker to Mr.
Kingdon. It was on the occasion of this visit of
Mr. Jeune to Robert Hawker that they went over
together to Boscastle, and there performed the prank
described in <i>Footprints of Former Men in Cornwall</i>.
The two young men put up in the little inn of Joan
Treworgy, entitled The Ship. The inn still exists;
but it is rebuilt, and has become more magnificent
in its accommodation and charges.

“We proceeded to confer about beds for the night,
and, not without misgivings, inquired if she could
supply a couple of those indispensable places of
repose. A demur ensued. All the gentry in the
town, she declared, were accustomed to sleep two in
a bed; and the officers that travelled the country,
and stopped at her house, would mostly do the same:
but, however, if we commanded two beds for only
two people, two we must have; only, although they
were both in the same room, we must certainly pay
for two, and sixpence apiece was her regular price.
We assented, and then went on to entreat that we
might dine. She graciously agreed; but to all
questions as to our fare her sole response was, ‘Meat—meat
and taties. Some call ’em,’ she added, in a
scornful tone, ‘purtaties; but we always says taties
here.’ The specific differences between beef, mutton,
veal, etc., seemed to be utterly or artfully ignored;
.bn 021.png
.pn +1
and to every frenzied inquiry her calm, inexorable
reply was, ‘Meat—nice wholesome meat and taties.’

“In due time we sat down in that happy ignorance
as to the nature of our viands which a French cook
is said to desire; and, although we both made a not
unsatisfactory meal, it is a wretched truth that by
no effort could we ascertain what it was that was
roasted for us that day by widow Treworgy, and which
we consumed. Was it a piece of Boscastle baby? as
I suggested to my companion. The question caused
him to rush out to inquire again; but he came back
baffled and shouting, ‘Meat and taties.’ There was
not a vestige of bone, nor any outline that could
identify the joint; and the not unsavoury taste was
something like tender veal. It was not till years
afterwards that light was thrown on our mysterious
dinner that day by a passage which I accidently
turned up in an ancient history of Cornwall. Therein
I read, ‘that the silly people of Bouscastle and
Boussiney do catch in the summer seas divers young
soyles (seals), which, doubtful if they be fish or flesh,
conynge housewives will nevertheless roast, and do
make thereof savory meat.’”

Very early next morning, before any one else was
awake, Hawker and Jeune left the inn, and, going to
all the pig-sties of the place, released their occupants.
They then stole back to their beds.

“We fastened the door, and listened for results.
The outcries and yells were fearful. By-and-by
human voices began to mingle with the tumult: there
were shouts of inquiry and surprise, then sounds of
expostulation and entreaty, and again ‘a storm of
.bn 022.png
.pn +1
hate and wrath and wakening fear.’ At last the tumult
reached the ears of our hostess, Joan Treworgy.
We heard her puff and blow, and call for Jim. At
last, after waiting a prudent time, we thought it best
to call aloud for shaving-water, and to inquire with
astonishment into the cause of that horrible disturbance
which had roused us from our morning
sleep. This brought the widow in hot haste to our
door. ‘Why, they do say, captain,’ was her doleful
response, ‘that all the pegs up-town have a-rebelled,
and they’ve a-been, and let one the wother out, and
they be all a-gwain to sea, hug-a-mug, bang!’”

Some years after, when Mr. Jeune was Dean of
Magdalen Hall, Mr. Hawker went up to take his
M.A. degree. The dean on that occasion was,
according to custom, leading a gentleman-commoner
of the same college, a very corpulent man, to the
vice-chancellor, to present him for his degree, with
a Latin speech. Hawker was waiting his turn. The
place was crowded, and the fat gentleman-commoner
was got with difficulty through the throng to the
place. Hawker leaned towards the dean as he was
leading and endeavouring to guide this unwieldy
candidate, who hung back, and got hitched in the
crowd, and said in a low tone:—

“Why, your peg’s surely mazed, maister.”

When the crowd gave way, and the dean reached
the vice-chancellor’s chair, he was in spasms of
uncontrollable laughter.

At Oxford Mr. Robert Hawker made acquaintance
with Macbride, afterwards head of the college; and
the friendship lasted through life.
.bn 023.png
.pn +1

In after years, when Jeune, Jacobson and Macbride
were heads of colleges, Robert S. Hawker went
up to Oxford in his cassock and gown. The cassock
was then not worn, as it sometimes is now, except
by heads of colleges and professors. Mr. Hawker
was therefore singular in his cassock. He was
outside St. Mary’s one day, with Drs. Jeune, Jacobson
and Macbride, when a friend, looking at him in
his gown and cassock, said: “Why, Hawker, one
would think you wanted to be taken for a head.”

“About the last thing I should like to be taken
for, as heads go,” was his ready reply, with a roguish
glance at his three companions.

Mr. Hawker has related another of his mischievous
tricks when an undergraduate. There was a poor
old woman named Nanny Heale, who passed for a
witch. Her cottage was an old decayed hut, roofed
with turf. One night Robert Hawker got on the roof,
and looking down the chimney, saw her crouching
over her turf fire, watching with dim eyes an iron
crock, or round vessel, filled with potatoes, that were
simmering in the heat. This utensil was suspended
by its swing handle to an iron bar that went across
the chimney. Hawker let a rope, with an iron hook
at the end, slowly and noiselessly down the chimney,
and, unnoted by poor Nanny’s blinking sight, caught
the handle of the caldron; and it, with its mealy
contents, began to ascend the chimney slowly and
majestically.

Nanny, thoroughly aroused by this unnatural proceeding
of her old iron vessel, peered despairingly
after it, and shouted at the top of her voice:—
.bn 024.png
.pn +1

“Massy ’pon my sinful soul! art gawn off—taties
and all?”

The vessel was quietly grasped, and carried down
in hot haste, and planted upright outside the cottage
door. A knock, given on purpose, summoned the
inmate, who hurried out, and stumbled over, as
she afterwards interpreted the event, her penitent
crock.

“So, then,” was her joyful greeting,—“so, then!
theer’t come back to holt, then! Ay, ’tis a-cold out
o’ doors.”

Good came out of evil: for her story, which she
rehearsed again and again, with all the energy and
persuasion of truth, reached the ears of the parochial
authorities; and they, thinking that old Nanny’s wits
had failed her, gave an additional shilling a week to
her allowance.

Hawker’s vacations were spent at Whitstone, or
at Ivy Cottage, near Bude. At Whitstone he built
himself a bark shanty in the wood, and set up
a life-sized carved wooden figure, which he had
procured in Oxford, at the door, to keep it. The
figure he called “Moses.” It has long since disappeared.

In this hut he was wont to read. His meals were
brought out there to him. His intervals of work
were spent in composing ballads on Cornish legends,
afterwards published at Oxford in his <i>Records of
the Western Shore</i>, 1832. They have all been reprinted
in later editions of his poems. One of these,
his “Song of the Western Men,” was adapted to the
really ancient burden:—
.bn 025.png
.pn +1

.pm verse-start
And shall they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
  And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
  Will know the reason why!
.pm verse-end

These verses have so much of the antique flavour,
that Sir Walter Scott, in one of his prefaces to a
later edition of the <i>Border Minstrelsy</i>, refers to them
as a “remarkable example of the lingering of the
true ballad spirit in a remote district”; and Mr.
Hawker possessed a letter from Lord Macaulay in
which he admitted that, until undeceived by the writer,
he had always supposed the whole song to be of the
time of the Bishops’ trial.

At Ivy Cottage he had formed for himself a perch
on the edge of the cliff, where he could be alone with
his books, his thoughts, and, as he would say with
solemnity, “with God.”

Perhaps few thought then how deep were the
religious impressions in the joyous heart, full of
exuberant spirits, of the young Oxford student. All
people knew of him was, that he was remarkable
for his beauty, for his brightness of manner, his
overflowing merriment, and love of playing tricks.
But there was a deep undercurrent of religious
feeling setting steadily in one direction, which was
the main governing stream of his life. Gradually
this emerges into sight, and becomes recognised.
Then it was known to few except his wife and her
sisters.

Of this period of his life, it is chiefly his many
jests which have lingered on in the recollection of
his friends and relations.
.bn 026.png
.pn +1

One absurd hoax that he played on the superstitious
people of Bude must not be omitted.

At full moon in the July of 1825 or 1826, he swam
or rowed out to a rock at some little distance from
the shore, plaited seaweed into a wig, which he
threw over his head, so that it hung in lank streamers
half-way down his back, enveloped his legs in an
oilskin wrap, and, otherwise naked, sat on the rock,
flashing the moonbeams about from a hand-mirror,
and sang and screamed till attention was arrested.
Some people passing along the cliff heard and saw
him, and ran into Bude, saying that a mermaid with
a fish’s tail was sitting on a rock, combing her hair,
and singing.

A number of people ran out on the rocks and along
the beach, and listened awestruck to the singing
and disconsolate wailing of the mermaid. Presently
she dived off the rock, and disappeared.

Next night crowds of people assembled to look
out for the mermaid; and in due time she reappeared,
and sent the moon flashing in their faces from her
glass. Telescopes were brought to bear on her; but
she sang on unmoved, braiding her tresses, and uttering
remarkable sounds, unlike the singing of mortal
throats which have been practised in do-re-mi.

This went on for several nights; the crowd growing
greater, people arriving from Stratton, Kilkhampton,
and all the villages round, till Robert Hawker
got very hoarse with his nightly singing, and rather
tired of sitting so long in the cold. He therefore
wound up the performance one night with an unmistakable
“God save the King,” then plunged into the
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
waves, and the mermaid never again revisited the
“sounding shores of Bude.”

Miss Fanny I’ans was a late riser. Her brother-in-law,
to break her of this bad habit, was wont to
throw open her window early in the morning, and
turn in a troop of setters, whose barking, yelping
and frantic efforts to get out of the room again,
effectually banished sleep from the eyes of the fair
but somewhat aged occupant.

Efford Farm had been sub-let to a farmer, who
broke the lease by ploughing up and growing crops
on land which it had been stipulated should be kept
in grass.

Sir Thomas Acland behaved with great generosity
in the matter. He might have reclaimed the farm
without making compensation to the ladies; but he
allowed them £300 a year as long as they lived, took
the farm away, and re-leased it to a more trusty tenant.

Mr. Robert Stephen Hawker obtained the Newdegate
in 1827:[#] he took his degree of B.A. in 1828,
and then went with his wife to Morwenstow, a place
for which even then he had contracted a peculiar
love, and there read for holy orders.
.pm fn-start
The poem, “Pompeii,” has been reprinted in his <i>Echoes of Old
Cornwall</i>, <i>Ecclesia</i>, etc.
.pm fn-end
.sp 2
.pm verse-start
Welcome, wild rock and lonely shore!
Where round my days dark seas shall roar,
And thy grey fane, Morwenna, stand
The beacon of the Eternal Land.
.pm verse-end

.bn 028.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch02
CHAPTER II
.pm ch-hd-start
Ordination—The Black Pig, “Gyp”—Writes to the Bishop—His Father
appointed to Stratton—He is given Morwenstow—The Waddon Lantern—St.
Morwenna—The Children of Brychan—St. Modwenna of
Burton-on-Trent—The North Cornish Coast—Tintagel—Stowe—Sir
Bevil Grenville—Mr. Hawker’s discovery of the Grenville Letters—Those
that remain—Antony Payne the Giant—Letters of Lady Grace—Of
Lord Lansdown—Cornish Dramatic Power—Mr. Hicks of Bodmin.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.4 0.7
<sc>Robert Stephen Hawker</sc> was ordained
deacon in 1829, when he was twenty-five
years old, by the Bishop of Exeter, to the
curacy of North Tamerton, of which the Rev. Mr.
Kingdon was non-resident incumbent. He threw
two cottages into one, and added a veranda and
rooms, and made himself a comfortable house, which
he called Trebarrow. He was ordained priest in
1831, by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He took
his M.A. degree in 1836. He had a favourite rough
pony which he rode, and a black pig of Berkshire
breed, well cared for, washed and curry-combed,
which ran beside him when he went out for walks
and paid visits. Indeed, the pig followed him into
ladies’ drawing-rooms, not always to their satisfaction.
The pig was called Gyp, and was intelligent and
obedient. If Mr. Hawker saw that those whom he
visited were annoyed at the intrusion of the pig, he
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
would order it forth; and the black creature slunk out
of the door with its tail out of curl.

It was whilst Mr. Hawker was at Tamerton that
Henry Phillpotts was appointed Bishop of Exeter.
There was some unpleasant feeling aroused in the
diocese at the mode of his appointment; and the
bishop sent a pastoral letter to his clergy to state
his intentions and explain away what caused unpleasantness.
Mr. Hawker wrote the bishop an
answer of such a nature that it began a friendship
which subsisted between them till the death of Dr.
Phillpotts. Whilst Mr. Hawker was curate of Tamerton,
on one or two occasions the friends of the
labouring dead requested that the burial hour might
be that at which the deceased was accustomed “to
leave work.” The request touched his poetical
instinct, and he wrote the lines:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Sunset should be the time, they said,
To close their brother’s narrow bed.
’Tis at that pleasant hour of day
The labourer treads his homeward way.
His work is o’er, his toil is done;
And therefore at the set of sun,
To wait the wages of the dead,
We laid our hireling in his bed.
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
In 1834 died the non-resident vicar of Stratton,
and the Bishop of Exeter offered to obtain the living
for Mr. Robert Stephen Hawker; but he refused it,
as his father was curate of Stratton, and he felt how
unbecoming it would be for him to assume the position
of vicar where his father had been, and still was,
curate. In his letter to the bishop he urged his
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
father’s long service at Stratton; and Dr. Phillpotts,
at his request, obtained the presentation for Mr.
Jacob Stephen Hawker to the vicarage of Stratton.

The very next piece of preferment that fell vacant
was Morwenstow, whose vicar, the Rev. Mr. Young,
died in 1834. Mr. Young had been non-resident, and
had lived at Torrington, the parish being served by
a succession of curates, some of them also non-resident.
The vicarage house, which stood west of
the tower near a gate out of the churchyard, was let
to the clerk, and inhabited by him and his wife.
The first curate was Mr. Badcock, who lived at
Week St. Mary, some fourteen miles distant. He
rode over for Sunday duty. Next came a M. Savant,
a Frenchman ordained deacon in the English Church,
but never priest. He was a dapper dandy, very
careful of his ecclesiastical costume, in knee-breeches
and black silk stockings. He lodged at Marsland.
Parson Davis of Kilkhampton came over to Morwenstow
to celebrate the holy communion. The
Frenchman was succeeded by Mr. Bryant, who lived
at Flexbury, in the parish of Poughill; the next to
him was Mr. Thomas, a man who ingratiated himself
with the farmers—a cheery person, fond of a good
story, and interested in husbandry, “but not much of
the clerical in him,” as an old Morwenstow man describes
him. Whilst Mr. Thomas was curate, the vicar,
Parson Young, died. A petition from the farmers and
householders of Morwenstow to the bishop was got up,
to request him to appoint Mr. Thomas. The curate,
so runs the tale, went to Exeter to present the paper
with their signatures, and urge his claims in person.
.bn 031.png
.pn +1

“My lord,” said he, “the Dissenters have all
signed the petition: they are all in favour of me.
Not one has declined to attach his name; even the
Wesleyan minister wishes to see me vicar of Morwenstow.”

“Then, my good sir,” said Dr. Phillpotts, “it is
very clear that you are not the man for me. I wish
you a good-morning.” And he wrote off to Robert
Stephen Hawker, offering him the incumbency of
Morwenstow.

There was probably not a living in the whole
diocese, perhaps not one in England, which could
have been more acceptable to Mr. Hawker. As his
sister tells me, “Robert always loved Morwenstow:
from a boy he loved it, and, when he could, went to
live there.”

He at once accepted the preferment, and went into
residence. There had not been a resident vicar
since the Rev. Oliver Rose[#*:pseudo#],[#] who lived at Eastaway,
in the parish. This Rev. Oliver Rose had a brother-in-law,
Mr. Edward Waddon of Stanbury; and the
cronies used to meet and dine alternately at each
other’s house. As they grew merry over their port,
the old gentlemen uproariously applauded any novel
joke or story by rattling their glasses on the table.
Having laughed at each other’s venerable anecdotes
for the last twenty years, the introduction of a new
tale or witticism was hailed with the utmost enthusiasm.
This enthusiasm reached such a pitch, that,
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
in their applause of each other’s sallies, they occasionally
broke their wine-glasses.
.pm fn-start
Throughout this memoir, wherever an asterisk
accompanies a name it is for the purpose of showing that the real
name has not been given, either at the request of descendants, or
because relatives are still alive.
.pm fn-end

The vicar of Morwenstow, when Mr. Waddon
snapped off the foot of his glass, would put the foot
and a fragment in his pocket, and treasure it; for
each wine-glass broken was to him a testimony to
the brilliancy of his jokes, and also a reminder to
him of them for future use.

In time he had accumulated a considerable number
of broken wine-glasses, and he had them fitted together
to form an enormous lantern; and thenceforth,
when he went to dine at Stanbury, this testimony to
his triumphs was borne lighted before him.

The lantern fell into the hands of Mr. Hawker,
and he presented it to the lineal descendant of Mr.
E. Waddon, as a family relic. It is still in existence,
and duly honoured. It is of oak, with the fragments
of wine-glasses let in with great ingenuity in the
patterns of keys, hearts, etc., about the roof, the sides
being composed of the circular feet of the glasses.

On looking at the map of Cornwall, one is surprised
to see it studded with the names of saints, of whom
one knows nothing, and these names of a peculiarly
un-English sound. The fact is, that Cornwall was,
like Ireland, a land of saints in the fifth and sixth
centuries. These were either native Cornish, or were
Irish or Welsh saints who migrated thither to seek
on the desolate moors or wild, uninhabited coasts of
Cornwall, solitary places, where they might live to
God, and fight demons, like the hermits of Egypt.
Cornwall was the Thebaid of the Welsh.

Little or nothing is known of the vast majority
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
of these saints. They have left their names and
their cells and holy-wells behind them, but nothing
more.
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
They had their lodges in the wilderness,
Or built their cells beside the shadowy sea;
And there they dwelt with angels like a dream.
So they unclosed the volume of the Book,
And filled the fields of the Evangelist
With thoughts as sweet as flowers![#]
.pm verse-end
.pm fn-start
“The Cornish Fathers,” in Mr. Hawker’s <i>Echoes of Old Cornwall</i>,
1846.
.pm fn-end

The legends of a few local saints survive, but of very
few. Such is that of St. Melor “with the golden hand,”
probably some old British deity who has bequeathed
his myth to an historical personage. St. Padarn,
St. Cadoc, St. Petrock, have their histories well
known, as they belong to Wales. But there are
other saints, emigrants from Wales, who settled on
the north-west coast, of whom but little is known.

What little can be collected concerning St. Morwenna,
who had her cell at Morwenstow, I proceed
to give.

In the fifth century there lived in Brecknock an
Irish invader, Brychan by name, who died in 450.
According to Welsh accounts, he had twenty-four
sons and twenty-five daughters, in all forty-nine
children. Statements, however, vary, of which this
is the largest. The smallest number attributed to
him is twenty-four; and, as his grandchildren may
have been included in the longer list, this may account
for the discrepancy. He is said to have had
three wives—Ewrbrawst, Rhybrawst and Peresgri—though
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
it is not said that they were living at the
same time. The fact seems to have been that all
the Hy Brychan or family are regarded as brothers
and sisters.

The names of the sons and daughters and grandchildren
of Brychan are given in the <i>Cognacio
Brychani</i>, and in the Bonnedd-y-Saint; and a critical
examination of the lists is given by Dr. Rees in his
<i>Essay on the Welsh Saints</i>. In the “Young Woman’s
Window” at St. Neots, near Liskeard, in Cornwall,
is fifteenth-century glass, which represents Brychan
with his offspring, twenty-four in number, all of
whom have been confessors or martyrs in Devon
and Cornwall. The following are named: 1. St.
John, or Ive, who gave his name to the Church of
St. Ive; 2. Endelient, who gave his name to Endelion;
3. Menfre, to St. Miniver; 4. Teth, to St.
Teath; 5. Mabina, to St. Mabyn; 6. Merewenna, to
Marham Church near Bude; 7. Wenna, to St.
Wenn; 8. Yse, to St. Issey; 9. Morwenna, to
Morwenstow; 10. Cleder, to St. Clether; 11. Kerie,
to Egloskerry; 12. Helic, to Egloshayle; 13. Adwen,
to Advent; 14. Lanent, to Lelant. Leland, in his
<i>Itinerary</i>, adds Nectan, Dilic, Wensenna, Wessen,
Juliana,[#] Wymp, Wenheder, Jona, Kananc, and
Kerhender.
.pm fn-start
St. Juliot, who has left her name near Boscastle.
.pm fn-end

A few, but not many of these can be identified
with those attributed to Brychan by the Welsh
genealogists. Morwenna is most probably the
Welsh Mwynen, in Latin Monyina, daughter of
Brynach Wyddel by Corth, one of the daughters of
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
Brychan; and her sisters Gwennan and Gwenlliu
are probably the Wenna and Wenheder of Leland’s
list.

St. Morwenna was therefore apparently the granddaughter
of Brychan. Her father, Brynach Wyddel,
is the St. Branock of Braunton near Ilfracombe.
He also founded churches in Carmarthen and Pembroke.

In Cornwall, as in Wales, churches were called
after the saints who founded cells there. Morwenna,
we may safely conclude, like so many of her brothers,
sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts, migrated to Cornwall.
St. Nectan, who may have been her brother,
and who certainly was a near relation, established
himself, we may conjecture, at St. Neighton’s Kieve,
at which time probably Morwenna had her cell at
Marham Church. St. Nectan afterwards established
himself on Hartland Point from which, in clear
weather, and before a storm, the distant coast of
his native Wales was visible; and perhaps at the
same time Morwenna erected her cell on the cliff
above the Atlantic, which has since borne her name.
There she died. Leland, in his <i>Collectanea</i>, quoting
an ancient MS. book of places where the bodies of
saints rest, says that St. Morwenna lies at Morwenstow:
“In villa, quæ Modwenstow dicitur, S. Mudwenna
quiescit.”

It will be seen from this extract that Leland
confounded Morwenna with Modwenna; and Mr.
Hawker, following Leland and Butler, did the same.
In the year before he died I had a correspondence
with him on this point.
.bn 036.png
.pn +1

There exists a late life of St. Modwenna by one
Concubran, an Irish writer of the end of the
thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century.
There is also an Irish life of a Monynna of Newry,
in Ireland, who received the veil from the hands of
St. Patrick, and died about <sc>A.D.</sc> 518.

Concubran had this life, and knowing of the fame
of the saintly abbess Modwenna of Burton-on-Trent,
he supposed the two saints were the same, and wove
the Irish legend of Monynna with the English life
of Modwenna, and made out of them a life which is
a tissue of anachronisms. He represents St. Modwenna
as contemporary with Pope Cœlestine I.
(423-432), St. Patrick (died 465), St. Ibar (died 500),
St. Columba (died 597), St. Kevin (died 618), and
King Alfrid of Northumbria (died 705).

St. Modwenna, or Moninna, founded a convent at
Fochard Brighde, near Faugher, in the county of
Louth, about the year 630; and 150 virgins placed
themselves under her rule. But one night, an
uproarious wedding having disturbed the rest and
fluttered the hearts of her nuns, and threatened
to turn their heads, Modwenna deemed it prudent
to remove the excitable damsels to some more remote
spot, where no weddings took place, nor
convivial songs were heard; and she pitched upon
Killsleve-Cuilin, in the county of Armagh, where
she erected a monastery. One of her maidens
was named Athea, another Orbile. She had a
brother, a holy abbot, named Ronan.

In Concubran’s <i>Life of St. Modwenna</i>, we are told
that about this time Alfrid, son of the King of
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
England, came to Ireland. This is certainly Alfrid,
the illegitimate son of Oswy, who, on the accession
of Egfrid (<sc>A.D.</sc> 670), fled to Ireland, and remained
there studying, as Bede tells us, for some while.
The Irish king, according to Concubran, was Conall.
But this is a mistake. Conall, nephew of Donald II.,
reigned from 642 to 658. Seachnach was king in
670, but was killed the following year, and was succeeded
by Finnachta, who reigned till 695. When
Alfrid was about to return to Northumbria, the Irish
king wanted to make him a present, but, having
nothing in his treasury, bade a kinsman go and rob
some church or convent, and give the spoils to the
Northumbrian prince. The noble fell on all the
lands of the convent of Moninna, and pillaged
them and the church. Then the saint, with great
boldness, took ship, crossed over to England, went
to Northumbria, and found the Prince Alfrid at
Whitby (<sc>A.D.</sc> 685), and demanded redress. The
king—for Alfrid was now on the throne—promised
to repay all, and placed Moninna in the famous
double monastery of Whitby founded by St. Hilda
in 658. His own sister, Elfleda, was there; and he
committed her to St. Modwenna, to be instructed by
her in the way of life. Elfleda was then aged thirty-one.
Three years after she succeeded to the place of
St. Hilda, and was second Abbess of Whitby. Then
St. Modwenna returned to Ireland, and visited her
foundations there. After a while she made a pilgrimage
to Rome, and in passing through England founded
a religious house at Burton-on-Trent, and left in it
some of her nuns. I need not follow her history farther.
.bn 038.png
.pn +1

Concubran tells some odd stories of St. Modwenna.
One day she and her nuns went to visit St. Bridget—regardless,
be it remembered, of the gap of two
centuries which intervened. A girl in the company
took an onion away with her lest she should be
hungry on the road. On reaching the Liffey, the
river was found to be too swollen to be crossed.
“There is something wrong,” said Modwenna: “let
us examine our consciences and cast away the
accursed thing.”

“The accursed thing is this onion,” said the
maiden, producing the bulb.

“Take it back to Bridget,” said Modwenna; and,
when the onion had been restored, the Liffey subsided.

Bridget sent a silver chalice to Modwenna. She
threw it into the river, and the waves washed it to
its destination.

One night Modwenna said to her assembled nuns:
“My sisters, we must all cleanse our consciences,
for our prayers stick in the roof of the chapel, and
cannot break out.”

Then one of the nuns said: “It is my fault. I
complained to a knight of my acquaintance of the
cold I felt; and he told me I was too scantily clothed.
He was moved to such pity of me, that he gave me
some warm lamb’s-wool underclothing, and I have
that on now.” The garment was removed and
destroyed; and the prayers got out of the roof and
flew to heaven.[#]
.pm fn-start
“Dixit S. Movenna: Melius, ut illi subtulares imponantur in
profundissimum branum (? barathrum) pro quibus nunc absentiam
sentimus Angelorum! Vocata itaque una ex sororibus Brigna et
aliis cum ea ex sororibus, dixit eis: Ite! illos subtulares in
aliquo profundo abscondite.”
.pm fn-end
.bn 039.png
.pn +1

One night, shortly before her death, before the grey
dawn broke, a couple of lay sisters came to her cell.
As they approached, they saw two silver swans rise
in the air, and sail away. They immediately concluded
that these were angels come to bear off the
soul of the abbess.

Her body was laid at Burton-on-Trent, and was
long an object of pilgrimage. But the fact that for
a short while St. Modwenna instructed the sister of
Alfrid, “son of the King of England,” has led some
writers into strange mistakes. Capgrave supposes
him to be Alfred the Great, son of Ethelwolf, and
that the sister was Edith of Polesworth, who died in
954. And Dugdale followed Capgrave. Mr. Hawker,
following Alban Butler, who accepted the account of
Dugdale and Capgrave, made the blunder greater by
fusing St. Morwenna of Cornwall, who, as has been
shown, lived in the fifth century, with Modwenna,
who lived at the end of the seventh century,
and made her the instructress of St. Edith of
Polesworth, who died in the tenth century, in
the year 954. And Modwenna, as has been stated,
was confounded by Concubran with Monynna of
Newry, who died at the beginning of the sixth
century.

On unravelling this tangle in 1874, I wrote to
Mr. Hawker of Morwenstow, and told him that the
east window of his church represented Morwenna
of Cornwall teaching Edith of Polesworth, and that
it was an anachronism and mistake altogether, as
it was not Edith who was educated by the saintly
Modwenna, and the abbess Modwenna was not the
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
virgin Morwenna. I told him also that St. Modwenna
was buried at Burton-on-Trent.

I received this answer:—

“What! Morwenna not lie in the holy place at
Morwenstow! Of that you will never persuade me—no,
never. I know that she lies there. I have
seen her, and she has told me as much; and at her
feet ere long I hope to lay my old bones.”

In the little glen of Morwenstow, 350 feet above
the Atlantic, St. Morwenna had her cell, and gave
origin to the church and parish of Morwenstow. As
she lay a-dying, says a legend according to Hawker,
her brother Nectan came to her from Hartland.

“Raise me in thy arms, brother,” she said, “that
my eyes may rest on my native Wales.” And so
she died on Morwenstow cliff, looking out across
the Severn Sea to the faint blue line of the Welsh
mountains. St. Nectan had a cell at Wellcombe,
as also at Hartland, for both of these churches bear
his name.

The coast from Tintagel to Hartland is almost
unrivalled for grandeur. The restless Atlantic is
ever thundering on this iron-walled coast. The roar
can be heard ten miles inland; flakes of foam are
picked up after a storm at Holsworthy. To me,
when staying three miles inland, it has seemed the
roar of a hungry caged beast, ravening at its bars for
food.

The swell comes unbroken from Labrador, to hurl
itself against this coast, and to be shivered into foam
on its iron cuirass.

“Twice,” said a friend who dwelt near this coast,
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
“twice in the sixteen years that I have spent here
has the sea been calm enough to reflect a passing
sail.”

This Atlantic has none of the tameness of the
German Ocean, that plays on the low flat shores of
Essex; none of the witchery of the green crystal
that breaks over the white sands of Babbicombe and
Torquay: it is emphatically “the cruel sea,” fierce,
insatiate, hungering for human lives and stately
vessels, that it may cast them up mumbled and
mangled after having robbed them of life and treasure.

It is a rainy coast. It is said in Devon, and the
same is true here:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
The west wind comes, and brings us rain;
The east wind blows it back again;
The south wind brings us rainy weather;
The north wind, cold and rain together.
When the sun in red doth set,
The next day surely will be wet;
But, if the sun should set in grey,
The next will be a rainy day.
When buds the ash before the oak,
Then that year there’ll be a soak;
But, should the oak precede the ash,
Why then expect a rainy splash.
.pm verse-end

The moist air from the ocean condenses over the
land, and envelops it in fine fog or rain. But when
the sky is clear, with only floating clouds drifting
along it, the sunlight and shadows that fall over the
landscape through the vaporous air are exquisite in
their delicacy of colour; the sun-gleams soft as primrose,
the shadows pure cobalt, tenderly laid on as the
bloom on the cheek of a plum.
.bn 042.png
.pn +1

As the tall cliffs on this wild coast lose themselves
in mist, so does history, which attaches itself to many
a spot along it, stand indistinct and weird in its veil
of legend. Kings and saints of whom little authentic
is known, whose very dates are uncertain, have given
their names to castle and crag and church.

Tintagel Rock is crowned with the ruins of the
stronghold of Duke Gorlois, whose wife became the
mother of the renowned Arthur, by Uther Pendragon.
We have the tale in <i>Geoffry of Monmouth</i>. There,
in the home of the shrieking sea-mews, Arthur uttered
his first feeble cries. It is a scene well suited to be
the cradle of the hero of British myth—a tremendous
crag standing out of the sea, which has bored a
tunnel through it, and races in and clashes in subterranean
passages under the crumbling walls which
sheltered Arthur.

The crag is cut off from the mainland by a chasm
once spanned by a drawbridge, but now widened by
storm so as to threaten to convert Tintagel into an
island.

Near Boscastle rises Pentargon, “Arthur’s Head,”
a noble black sheer precipice, forming one horn of a
little bay into which a waterfall plunges from a green
combe.

But there are other names besides those of Arthur,
Uther Pendragon, Morwenna, Juliot and Nectan,
which are associated with this coast.

At Stowe, in the parish of Kilkhampton, adjoining
Morwenstow, lived Sir Bevil Grenville, the Bayard
of old Cornwall, “sans peur et sans reproche,” who
fought and conquered at Stratton, and fell at Lansdown.
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
Sir Bevil nearly ruined himself for the cause
of his king, Charles I.

One of Mr. Hawker’s most spirited ballads is—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
        THE GATE SONG OF STOWE.

Arise! and away! for the king and the law;
  Farewell to the couch and the pillow:
With spear in the rest, and with rein in the hand,
  Let us rush on the foe like a billow.

Call the hind from the plough, and the herd from the fold;
  Bid the wassailer cease from his revel;
And ride for old Stowe when the banner’s unfurled
  For the cause of King Charles and Sir Bevil.

Trevanion is up, and Godolphin is nigh,
  And Harris of Hayne’s o’er the river;
From Lundy to Looe, “One and all!” is the cry,
  And “the king and Sir Bevil for ever!”

Ay! by Tre, Pol and Pen, ye may know Cornishmen
  ‘Mid the names and the nobles of Devon;
But if truth to the king be a signal, why, then,
  Ye can find out the Grenville in heaven.

Ride! ride with red spear! there is death in delay:
  ’Tis a race for dear life with the devil!
If dark Cromwell prevail, and the king must give way,
  This earth is no place for Sir Bevil.

So at Stamford he fought, and at Lansdown he fell:
  But vain were the visions he cherished;
For the great Cornish heart that the king loved so well,
  In the grave of the Grenville it perished.
.pm verse-end
One day, if indeed we may trust the story, Mrs.
Hawker, the first wife of the vicar of Morwenstow,
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
when lunching at Stowe in the farmhouse, noticed
that a letter in old handwriting was wrapped round
the mutton-bone that was brought on the table.
Moved by curiosity, she took the paper off, and showed
it to Mr. Hawker. On examination it was found
that the letter bore the signature of Sir Bevil Grenville.
Mr. Hawker at once instituted inquiries, and
found a large chest full of letters of different members
of the Grenville family in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. He at once communicated
with Lord Carteret, owner of Stowe, and the papers
were removed; but by some unfortunate accident
they were lost. The only ones saved were a packet
extracted from the chest by Mr. Davies, rector of
Kilkhampton, previous to their being sent away
from Stowe. These were copied by Miss Manning
of Eastaway, in Morwenstow; and her transcript,
together with some of her originals—I fear not all—is
now in the possession of Ezekiel Rous, Esq., of
Bideford.[#]
.pm fn-start
I do not myself believe in the story of the finding
of the papers by Mrs. Hawker.
.pm fn-end

In his <i>Footprints of Former Men</i>, Mr. Hawker
has printed a letter from Antony Payne, the gigantic
serving-man of Sir Bevil, written after the battle
of Lansdown, to Lady Grace Grenville, giving an
account of the death of her husband. This was
probably one of the letters in the collection found
by Mr. Hawker, and so sadly lost.

This Antony Payne was a remarkable man. He
measured seven feet two inches without his shoes
when aged twenty-one, when he was taken into the
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
establishment at Stowe. He afterwards added two
inches to his height. It is said that one Christmas
Eve the fire languished in the hall at Stowe. A boy
with an ass had been sent to the woods for logs, but
had loitered on his way. Lady Grace lost patience.
Then Antony started in quest of the dilatory lad,
and re-entered the hall shortly after, bearing the
loaded animal on his back. He threw down his burden
at the hearth-side, shouting, “Ass and fardel!
Ass and fardel for my lady’s Yule!”

On another occasion he rode into Stratton with Sir
Bevil. An uproar proceeded from the little inn-yard,
and Sir Bevil bade his giant find out what was the
cause of the disturbance. Antony speedily returned
with a man under each arm, whom he had arrested
in the act of fighting.

“Here are the kittens,” said the giant; and he held
them under his arms whilst his master chastised
them with his riding-whip.

After the battle of Stamford Hill, Sir Bevil returned
for the night to Stowe; but his giant remained
with some other soldiers to bury the dead. He had
caused trenches to be dug to hold ten bodies side by
side, and in these trenches he and his followers
deposited the slain. On one occasion they had laid
nine corpses in their places; and Payne was bringing
another, tucked under his arm like one of the “kittens,”
when all at once the supposed dead man began
to kick and plead for life. “Surely you won’t bury
me, Mr. Payne, before I am dead?”—“I tell thee,
man,” was the grim reply, “our trench was dug for
ten, and there’s nine in it already: thou must take
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
thy place.”—“But I bean’t dead, I say; I haven’t
done living yet: be massyful, Mr. Payne; don’t ye
hurry a poor fellow into the earth before his time.”—“I
won’t hurry thee: thou canst die at thy leisure.”
Payne’s purpose was, however, kinder than
his speech. He carried the suppliant to his own cottage,
and left him to the care of his wife. The man
lived, and his descendants are among the principal
inhabitants of Stratton at this day.

I make no apology for transcribing from the original
letters a very few of the most interesting and
touching, some for whose escape we cannot feel too
thankful. The following beautiful letter is from
Lady Grace Grenville to her husband.

The superscription is:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>For my best Friend, Sir Bevill Grenvile.</sc>

<sc>My ever Dearest</sc>,—I have received yours from Salisbury,
and am glad to hear you came so farr well, with poore
Jack. Ye shall be sure of my prairs, which is the best service
I can doe you. I canott perceave whither you had receaved
mine by Tom, or no, but I believe by this time you have mett
that and another since by the post. Truly I have been out of
frame ever since you went, not with a cough, but in another
kinde, much indisposd. However, I have striven with it, and
was at Church last Sunday, but not the former. I have been
vexed with diverse demands made of money than I could
satisfie, but I instantly paid what you sent, and have intreated
Mr. Rous his patience a while longer, as you directed. It
grieves me to think how chargeable your family is, considering
your occasion. It hath this many yeares troubled me to think
to what passe it must come at last, if it run on after this course.
How many times what hath appeared hopefull, and yet proved
contrary in the conclusion, hath befalen us, I am loth to urge,
because tis farr from my desire to disturbe your thoughts; but
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
this sore is not to be curd with silence, or patience either, and
while you are loth to discourse or thinke of that you can take
little comfort to see how bad it is, and I was unwilling to strike
on that string which sounds harsh in your eare (the matter still
grows worse, though). I can never putt it out of my thoughts,
and that makes me often times seeme dreaming to you, when
you expect I should sometimes observe more complement
with my frends, or be more active in matters of curiousity in our
House, which doubtlesse you would have been better pleasd
with had I been capable to have performd it, and I believe
though I had a naturall dullnes in me, it would never so much
have appeard to my prejudice, but twas increasd by a continuance
of sundry disasters, which I still mett with, yet never
till this yeare, but I had some strength to encounter them, and
truly now I am soe cleane overcome, as tis in vaine to deny a
truth. It seems to me now tis high time to be sensible that
God is displeased, having had many sad remembrances in our
estate and childrene late, yet God spard us in our children
long, and when I strive to follow your advice in moderating my
grieffe (which I praise God) I have thus farr been able to doe
as not to repine at God’s will, though I have a tender sence of
griefe which hangs on me still, and I think it as dangerous and
improper to forgett it, for I cannott but think it was a neer
touched correction, sent from God to check me for my many
neglects of my duty to God. It was the tenth and last plague
God smote the Egyptians with, the death of their first borne,
before he utterly destroyed them, they persisting in their disobedience
notwithstanding all their former punishments. This
apprehension makes me both tremble and humbly beseech Him
to withdraw His punishments from us, and to give us grace to
know and amend whatever is amisse. Now I have powrd out
my sad thoughts which in your absence doth most oppresse me,
and tis my weakness hardly to be able to say thus much unto
you, how brimfull soever my heart be, though oftentimes I
heartely wish I could open my heart truly unto you when tis
overchargd. But the least thought it may not be pleasing to
you will at all times restraine me. Consider me rightly, I beseech
you, and excuse, I pray, the liberty I take with my pen
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
in this kinde. And now at last I must thanke you for wishing
me to lay aside all feare, and depend on the Almighty, who can
only helpe us; for His mercy I daily pray, and your welfare,
and our poore boys; so I conclude, and am ever your faithfully
and only
.ti 15
<sc>Grace Grenvile.</sc>

<sc>Stow</sc>, <i>Nov. 23, 1641</i>.
.sp 1
I sent yours to Mr. Prust, but this from him came after
mine was gone last weeke. Ching is gone to Cheddar. I
looke for Bawden, but as yet is not come. Sir Rob. Bassett
is dead.

I heard from my cosen Grace Weekes, who writes that Mr.
Luttrell says if you and he could meete the liking between the
young people, he will not stand for money you shall finde.
Parson Weekes wishes you would call with him, and that he
might entice you to take the castle in your way downe. She
sayes they enquire in the most courteous manner that can be
imagind. Deare love, thinke how to farther this what you can.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
The following is an earlier letter by many years,
written when Grace was a wife of six years’ standing.
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
<sc>Sweet Mr. Grenvile</sc>,—I cannott let Mr. Oliver passe
without a line, though it be only to give you thankes for yours,
which I have receaved. I will in all things observe your directions
as neer as I can, and because I have not time to say
much now I will write againe to-morrow ... [something torn
away], and think you shall receave advertizment concerning us
much as you desyre. I cannot say I am well, neither have I
bin so since I saw you, but, however, I will pray for your health,
and good successe in all businesses, and pray be so kinde as to
love her who takes no comfort in anything but you, and will
remayne yours ever and only
.ti 15
<sc>Grace Grenvile.</sc>

<sc>Fryday Night</sc>, <i>Nov. 13, 1629</i>.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
The superscription of this letter is:—
.sp 1
.fs 85%
.in 4
“To my ever dearest and best Friend, Mr. Bevill Grenvile, at
the Rainbow, in Fleet Street.”
.in 0
.fs 100%
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
.sp 1
Lady Grace was the daughter of Sir George Smith
of Exeter, Kt.: she was born in 1598, and married
Sir Bevil Grenville in 1620. He died in 1643, on
the battlefield of Lansdown, near Bath; and she
followed him to the grave in 1647. Her portrait is
at Haynes, “ætatis suæ 36, 1634”. One of Sir Bevil
is in the possession of Lord John Thynne; another
with date 1636, “ætatis suæ 40,” is in the possession
of Rev. W. W. Martyn of Tonacombe, in Morwenstow.

There are other letters of the Grenvilles in the
bundle from which I have selected these. One from
John Grenville to his brother, giving a curious picture
of London life in the seventeenth century, narrating
how he quarrelled with a certain barber Wells, and
came very nigh to pulling off noses;[#] one from Jane,
wife of John Grenville, Earl of Bath, to her husband
“for thy deare selfe,” beginning, “My deare Heart,”
and telling how:—

.pm letter-start
I am now without any man in the house, my father being
gone, and Jacke is drunk all day and leyes out of nights, and
if I do but tell him of it he will be gone presantly; therefore,
for God’s sake, make haste up, for I am so parpetually ill that
I am not fit to bee anny longgar left in this condission. My
poore motther hath now so much bisnese that I do not knowe
how long she will be abble to tary with mee, and if that should
happen, which God forbid it should at any time, much more
now, what dost thou thinke I should do? I want the things
thou prommysed to send me very much, which, being to long
to put in a lettar, I have geven my brother a not of. My
deare, consider how nere I am my time, and many women
comming this yeare before thar time.... Thou mayst now
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
thinke how impassiontly I am till I see thee agane, thinking
every day a hondared yeare; my affecksion being so gret that
I wounder how I have stayd till the outmoust time. I will saye
no more now, hopping to see thee every day, but that I am,
and ever will bee, thy most affectionate and faithful wife and
sarvant,
.ti 15
<sc>Jane Grenvile</sc>.

Thy babe bayrs thy blessing.
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
To Beville Grenville, Esq., dated July 18, 1621.
.pm fn-end

This letter is dated only June 17, without year. It
is always pleasant to meet with the beating of a
warm human heart. A third letter I venture to transcribe
here, from George Lord Lansdown,[#] grandson
of Sir Bevil, to his nephew, Bevil Grenville.
.pm fn-start
George Lord Lansdown was son of Bernard Grenville,
son of Sir Bevil. Bernard, who died 1701, had three sons, Bevil,
George and Barnard; and Barnard had two sons, Barnard and Bevil,
and Mary, a daughter, who married Dr. Delany. Bevil, the son of
Barnard, is the nephew to whom this letter is addressed.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
<sc>Dear Nephew</sc>,—I approve very well of your resolution of
dedicating yourself to the service of God. You could not chuse
a better master, provided you have so sufficiently searched your
heart and examined your reins, as to be persuaded you can
serve Him well. In so doing, you may secure to yourself many
blessings in this world, as well as sure hope in the next.

There is one thing which I perceive you have not yet
thoroughly purged yourself from; which is, flattery. You have
bestowed so much of it upon me in your last letter, that I hope
you have no more left, and that you meant it only to take your
leave of such flights, which, however well meant, oftener put a
man out of countenance than oblige him. You are now to be
a searcher after truth, and I shall hereafter take it more kindly
to be justly reproved by you than to be undeservedly complimented.

I would not have you misunderstand me, as if I recommended
to you a sour Presbyterian severity. That is yet more
to be avoided: advice, like physick, must be so sweetned and
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
prepared as to be made palatable, or Nature may be apt to
revolt against it.

Be always sincere, but at the same time be always polite.
Be humble without descending from your character, and reprove
and correct without ofending good manners. To be a
Cynick is as bad as to be a Sycophant: you are not to lay aside
the gentleman with the sword, nor put on the gown to hide
your birth and good breeding, but to adorn it.

Such has been the malice of the wicked, that pride, avarice,
and ambition have been charged upon the Clergy in all ages, in
all countrys, and equally in all religions. What they are most
obliged to combat against in the pulpits they are most accused
of encouraging in their conduct. Let your example confirm
your doctrine, and let no man ever have it in his power to
reproach you with practising contrary to what you preach.

You had an unckle, the late Dean of Durham,[#] whose memory
I shall ever revere. Make him your example. Sanctity sat so
easy, so unaffected, and so gracefull upon him, that in him
we beheld the very beauty of Holiness. He was as chearful
as familiar, as condescending in his conversation, as he was
strict, regular, and exemplary in his piety; as well-bred and
accomplished as a courtier, and as reverend and venerable as
an Apostle; he was indeed Apostolical in everything, for he
left all to follow his Lord and Master. May you resemble him;
may he revive in you; may his spirit descend upon you, as
Elijah’s on Elisha; and may the great God of heaven, in guiding,
directing, and strengthening your pious resolutions, pour
down the choicest of his blessings upon you!
.ti 15
<sc>Lansdown.</sc>
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
Denys Grenville, Dean of Durham (born February,
1636), was son of Sir Bevil. He was a nonjuror, and so lost his
deanery: he retired to Rouen in Normandy, and there died, greatly
respected.
.pm fn-end
.in 0
.fs 100%

The old house at Stowe was converted into farm
buildings, and a new red brick mansion, square, containing
a court in the middle, was built in 1660 by
John, Earl of Bath. He died in 1701; and his son,
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
Charles, shot himself accidentally when going from
London to Kilkhampton to his father’s funeral, leaving
a son, William Henry, third Earl of Bath, seven years
of age when his father died. Thus, as was said, at the
same time there were three Earls of Bath above
ground. William Henry died at the age of seventeen,
in 1711; and then the Grenville property was divided
between the sisters of Charles, second Earl of Bath—Jane,
who married Sir William Gower, ancestor of
the Dukes of Sutherland; and Grace, who at the
age of eight married George, afterwards first Lord
Carteret, then aged eleven.

The letters of this little pair to one another, when
the husband was at school and she at Haynes, exist
in the possession of Lord John Thynne.

Stowe House was pulled down. Within the memory
of one man, grass grew and was mown in the meadow
where sprang up Stowe House, and grew and was
mown in the meadow where Stowe had been.

A few crumbling walls only mark the site of the
old home of the Grenvilles.[#]
.pm fn-start
A picture of old Stowe is in the possession of Lord
John Thynne; another in that of Rev. W. W. Martyn of Lifton and
Tonacombe.
.pm fn-end

The Cornish people in former days were passionately
fond of theatrical performances. In numerous
parts of Cornwall there exist green dells or depressions
in the surface of the ground, situated generally on a
moor. These depressions have been assisted by the
hand of man to form rude theatres: the slopes were
terraced for seats, and on fine summer days, at the
“revels” of the locality, were occupied by crowds of
spectators, whilst village actors performed on the
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
turf stage.[#] Originally the pieces acted were sacred,
curious mysteries, of which specimens remain, relating
to the creation, or the legendary history of St. Meriadoc,
or the passion of the Saviour, the prototypes of the
Ammergau Passions-spiel. These in later times
gave way to secular pieces, not always very choice
in subject, and with the broadest of jokes in the
speeches of the performers; not worse, perhaps,
than are to be found in Shakspeare, and which
were tolerated in the days of Elizabeth. These
dramatical performances were in full vigour when
Wesley preached in Cornwall. He seized on these
rude green theatres, and harangued from their turfy
platforms to wondering and agitated crowds, which
thronged the grassy slopes.
.pm fn-start
There is one such not far from Morwenstow, in the
parish of Kilkhampton.
.pm fn-end

The Cornish people became Methodists, and play-going
became sinful. The doom of these dramas
was sealed when the place of their performances was
turned into an arena for revivals. The camp-meeting
supplanted the drama.

But, though these plays are things of the past,
the dramatic instinct survives among the Cornish
people. There is scarce a parish in which some are
not to be found who are actors by nature. For telling
a story, with power of speech, expression and gesture,
they have not their equals in England among un-professionals.

One of the most brilliant <i>raconteurs</i> of our times
was Mr. Hicks, Mayor of Bodmin.

Some years ago a member sauntering into the Cosmopolitan
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
Club would find a ring of listeners gathered
about a chair. In that ring he would recognise the
faces of Thackeray, Dickens, and other literary celebrities,
wiping away the tears which streamed from
their eyes between each explosion of laughter. He
would ask, in surprise, what was the attraction.

“Only the little fat Cornishman from Bodmin
telling a story.”[#]
.pm fn-start
He was formerly governor of the lunatic asylum at
Bodmin, and afterwards clerk of the Board of Guardians, and in
turn Mayor of Bodmin. Being very fat, he had himself once
announced at dinner as “The Corporation of Bodmin.” A memoir of
Mr. Hicks, and a collection of his stories has been written by
Mr. W. Collier, and published by Luke, Plymouth.
.pm fn-end

His tales were works of art, wrought out with
admirable skill, every point sharpened, every detail
considered, and the whole told with such expression
and action as could not be surpassed. His “Rabbit
and Onions” has been essayed by many since his
voice has been hushed; but the copies are pale, and
the outlines blurred.

The subject of this memoir had inherited the
Cornish love of story-telling, and the power of telling
stories with dramatic force. But he had not the
skill of Mr. Hicks in telling a long story, and keeping
his hearers thrilling throughout the recital, breathless
lest they should lose a word. Mr. Hawker contented
himself with brief anecdotes, but those he told to
perfection.

I shall, in the course of my narrative, give a
specimen or two of stories told by common Cornish
peasants. Alas, that I cannot reproduce the twinkling
eye, the droll working countenances, and the agitated
hands, all assistants in the story-telling!

.bn 055.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch03
CHAPTER III
.pm ch-hd-start
Description of Morwenstow—The Anerithmon Gelasma—Source of the
Tamar—Tonacombe—Morwenstow Church—Norman Chevron-Moulding—Chancel—Altar—Shooting
Rubbish—The Manning Bed—The
Yellow Poncho—The Vicarage—Mr. Tom Knight—The Stag,
Robin Hood—Visitors—The Silent Tower of Bottreaux—The Pet of
Boscastle.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.4 0.7
<sc>A writer</sc> in <i>The Standard</i> gives this description
of Morwenstow: “No railway has as yet
come near Morwenstow, and none will probably
ever approach it nearer than Bude. The coast
is iron-bound. Strangely contorted schists and sandstones
stretch away northward in an almost unbroken
line of rocky wall to the point of Hartland; and to
the south-west a bulwark of cliffs, of very similar
character, extends to and beyond Tintagel, whose
rude walls are sometimes seen projected against the
sunset in the far distance. The coast scenery is of
the grandest description, with its spires of splintered
rock, its ledges of green turf, inaccessible, but tempting
from the rare plants which nestle in the crevices, its
seal-haunted caverns, its wild birds (among which
the red-legged chough can hardly be reckoned any
longer, so much has it of late years lessened in
numbers),[#] the miles of sparkling blue sea over which
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
the eye ranges from the summits ablaze and fragrant
with furze and heather; and here and there the little
coves of yellow sand, bound in by towering blackened
walls, haunts which seem specially designed for the
sea-elves—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Who chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back.
.pm verse-end
.pm fn-start
This is inaccurate. There is scarce a cliff along
this coast which has not its pair of choughs building in it. On
the day on which this was written, I went out on Morwenstow
cliff, and saw two red-legged choughs flying above me. A friend
tells me he has counted six or seven together on Bude sands. The
choughs are, however, becoming scarce, being driven away by the
jackdaws.
.pm fn-end

“Even in bright weather, and in summer—in spite
of the beauty and quiet of the scene, and in spite,
too, of the long, deep valleys, filled with wood, which,
in the parish of Morwenstow especially, descend quite
to the sea, and give an impression of extreme stillness
and seclusion—no one can wander along the
summit of the cliffs without a consciousness that he
is looking on a giant, at rest indeed for a time, but
more full of strength and more really terrible than
any of the Cormorans or the Goemagots who have
left their footprints and their strongholds on the hills
of Cornwall. The sea and the coast here are, in
truth, pitiless; and, before the construction of the
haven at Bude, a vessel had no chance whatever of
escape which approached within a certain distance
of the rocks. Such a shipwreck as is described in
Galt’s story of <i>The Entail</i>—when persons standing
on the cliff, without the smallest power to help, could
see the vessel driven onward, could watch every
motion on its deck, and at last see it dashed to pieces
close under their feet—has more than once been
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
observed from the coast of Morwenstow by Mr.
Hawker himself. No winter passes without much
loss of life. The little churchyards along the coast
are filled with sad records; and in that of Morwenstow
the crews of many a tall vessel have been laid
to rest by the care of the vicar himself, who organised
a special band of searchers for employment after a
great storm.”[#]
.pm fn-start
<i>Standard</i>, 1st September, 1875.
.pm fn-end

The road to Morwenstow from civilisation passes
between narrow hedges, every bush on which is bent
from the sea. Not a tree is visible. The whole
country, doubtless, a century ago was moor and fen.
At Chapel is a plantation; but every tree crouches
shrivelled, and turns its arms imploringly inland.
The leaves are burnt and sear soon after they have
expanded.

The glorious blue Atlantic is before one, with only
Lundy Isle breaking the continuity of the horizon
line. In very clear weather, and before a storm, far
away in faintest blue, the Welsh coast can be seen
to the north-west.

Suddenly the road dips down a combe; and Morwenstow
tower, grey-stoned, pinnacled, stands up
against the blue ocean, with a grove of stunted
sycamores on the north of the church. Some way
below, deep down in the glen, are seen the roofs and
fantastic chimneys of the vicarage. The quaint
lyche-gate and ruined cottage beside it, the venerable
church, the steep slopes of the hills blazing with
gorse or red with heather, and the background of
sparkling blue sea half-way up the sky—from such
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
a height above the shore is it looked upon—form a
picture, once seen, never to be forgotten.

The bottom of the glen is filled with wood, stunted,
indeed, but pleasant to see after the treeless desolation
of the high land around.

A path leads from church and vicarage upon Morwenstow
cliffs. On the other side of the combe rises
Hennacliffe to the height of 450 feet above the sea,
a magnificent face of splintered and contorted schist,
with alternating friable slaty beds.

Half-way down Morwenstow cliff, only to be reached
by a narrow and scarcely distinguishable path, is the
well of St. Morwenna. Mr. Hawker repaired it; but
about twenty years ago the spring worked itself a way
through another stratum of slate, and sprang out of
the sheer cliff some feet lower down, and falls in a
miniature cascade, a silver thread of water, over a
ledge of schist into the sea.

On a green spot, across which now run cart-tracks,
in the side of the glen, stood originally, according to
Mr. Hawker, a chapel to St. Morwenna, visited by
those who sought her sacred well. The green patch
forms a rough parallelogram, and bears faint traces
of having been levelled out of the slope. No stone
remains on another of the ancient chapel.

From the cliff an unrivalled view can be had of the
Atlantic, from Lundy Isle to Padstow point. Tintagel
Rock, with its ancient castle, stands out boldly,
as the horn of a vast sweep against glittering water,
lit by a passing gleam behind. Gulls, rooks, choughs,
wheel and scream around the crag, now fluttering a
little way above the head, and then diving down
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
towards the sea, which roars and foams several
hundreds of feet below.

The beach is inaccessible save at one point, where
a path has been cut down the side of a steep gorse-covered
slope, and through slides of ruined slate
rock, to a bay, into which the Tonacombe Brook
precipitates itself in a broken fall of foam.

The little coves with blue-grey floors wreathed with
sea-foam; the splintered and contorted rock; the
curved strata, which here bend over like exposed ribs
of a mighty mammoth; the sharp skerries that run
out into the sea to torment it into eddies of froth and
spray—are of rare wildness and beauty.

It is impossible to stand on these cliffs, and not
cite the [Greek: a)nê/rithmon ge/lasma, pammê~to/r te gê~] of the
poet.

If this were quoted in the ears of the vicar of
Morwenstow, he would stop, lay his hand on one’s
arm and say—

“How do you translate that?”

“‘The many-twinkling smile of ocean.’”

“I thought so. So does every one else. But it is
wrong,” with emphasis—“utterly wrong. Listen to
me. Prometheus is bound, held backwards, with
brazen fetters binding him to the rock. He cannot
see the waters, cannot note their smiles. He gazes
up into the sky above him. But he hears. Notice
how Æschylus describes the sounds that reach his
ears, not the sights. Above, indeed, is the ‘divine
æther’; he is looking into that, and he hears the
fanning of the ’swift-winged breezes,’ and the murmur
and splash of the ‘fountains of rivers’; and then
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
comes the passage which I translate, ‘The loud laugh
of ocean waves.’”

A little way down the side of the hill that descends
in gorse banks and broken rock and clean precipice
to one of the largest and grandest of the caves, is a
hut made of fragments of wrecked ships thrown up
on this shore. The sides are formed of curved ribs
of vessels, and the entrance ornamented with carved
work from a figure-head. This hut was made by Mr.
Hawker himself; and in it he would sit, sheltered
from storm, and look forth over the wild sea, dreaming,
composing poetry, or watching ships scudding
before the gale dangerously near the coast.

It was in this hut that most of his great poem,
“The Quest of the Sangreal,” was composed.

A friend says: “I often visited him whilst this
poem was in process of composition, and sat with
him in this hut as he recited it. I shall never forget
one wild evening, when the sun had gone down before
our eyes as a ball of red-hot iron into the deep. He
had completed ‘The Quest of the Sangreal,’ and he
repeated it from memory to me. He had a marvellous
power of recitation, and with his voice, action
and pathos, threw a life into the words which vanishes
in print. I cannot forget the close of the poem, with
the throbbing sea before me, and Tintagel looming
out of the water to the south:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
He ceased, and all around was dreamy night;
There stood Dundagel, throned; and the great sea
Lay, a strong vassal at his master’s gate,
And, like a drunken giant, sobbed in sleep.
.pm verse-end
.bn 061.png
.pn +1

On a rushy knoll, in a moor in the parish of Morwenstow,
rises the Tamar,[#] and from the same mount
flows the Torridge.
.pm verse-start
Fount of a rushing river! wild flowers wreathe
  The home where thy first waters sunlight claim;
The lark sits hushed beside thee while I breathe,
  Sweet Tamar spring! the music of thy name.

On through thy goodly channel, on! to the sea!
  Pass amid heathery vale, tall rock, fair bough;
But never more with footstep pure and free,
  Or face so meek with happiness as now.

Fair is the future scenery of thy days,
  Thy course domestic, and thy paths of pride:
Depths that give back the soft-eyed violet’s gaze,
  Shores where tall navies march to meet the tide.
.pm verse-end
.hr 10%
.pm verse-start
Yet false the vision, and untrue the dream,
  That lures thee from thy native wilds to stray:
A thousand griefs will mingle with thy stream,
  Unnumbered hearts will sigh these waves away.

Scenes fierce with men, thy seaward current laves;
  Harsh multitudes will throng thy gentle brink;
Back with the grieving concourse of thy waves,
  Home to the waters of thy childhood, shrink.

Thou heedest not! thy dream is of the shore,
  Thy heart is quick with life; on! to the sea!
How will the voice of thy far streams implore
  Again amid these peaceful weeds to be!

My soul! my soul! a happier choice be thine,—
  Thine the hushed valley and the lonely sod;
False dream, far vision, hollow hope, resign,
  Fast by our Tamar spring, alone with God!
.pm verse-end
.pm fn-start
Tamar in Cornish is Taw-mawr, the great water; Tavy is Taw-vach,
the lesser water.
.pm fn-end
.bn 062.png
.pn +1

In the parish of Morwenstow is one very interesting
old house, Tonacombe, or, as it was originally
called, Tidnacombe. It belonged originally to the
Jourdains, passed to the Kempthornes, the Waddons,
and from thence to the Martyns. The present
proprietor is the Rev. W. Waddon Martyn, rector of
Lifton.

It is an ancient mansion of the sixteenth century,
quite perfect and untouched, very small and plain,
but in its way a gem, and well deserving a visit. It
is low, crouching to the ground like the trees of the
district, as for shelter, or as a ptarmigan cowering
from the hawk, with wings spread over her young.
A low gate, with porter’s lodge at the side, leads
into a small yard, into which look the windows of the
hall. The hall goes to the roof with open timbers;
it is small—thirty feet long—but perfect in its
way, with minstrel’s gallery, large open fireplace with
andirons, and adorned with antlers, old weapons and
banners bearing the arms of the Jourdains, Kempthornes,
Waddons and Martyns. The hall gives
access to a dark panelled parlour, with peculiar and
handsome brass andirons in the old fireplace, looking
out through a latticed window into the old walled
garden, or Paradise.

It is curious that Mr. Kingsley, when writing
<i>Westward Ho!</i> should have overlooked Tonacombe,
and laid some of his scenes at Chapel in the same
parish, where there never was an old house nor were
any traditions. Probably he did not know of the existence
of this charming old mansion. The minstrel’s
gallery was divided off from the hall, and converted into
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
a bedroom; but Mr. Hawker pointed out its original
destination to the owner, and he at once threw down
the lath-and-plaster partition, and restored the hall
to its original proportions.[#] The hall was also flat-ceiled
across; but the vicar of Morwenstow discovered
the oaken roof above the ceiling, and persuaded Mr.
Martyn to expose it to view. A narrow slit in the
wall from the bedroom of the lady of the house
allowed her to command a view of her lord at his
carousals, and listen to his sallies.
.pm fn-start
Tonacombe was panelled by John Kempthorne, who died in 1591.
The panelling remains in three of the rooms, and the initials J. K. and
K. K. (Katherine Kempthorne) appear in each. The date is also given,
1578, on the panelling. In the large parlour on two shields are the arms
of Ley quartered with those of Jordan and Kempthorne impaling Courtenay
and Redvers. Prince, in his <i>Worthies of Devon</i>, gives a notice of Sir John
Kempthorne, Kt., who put up this panelling. He is buried in the Morwenstow
Church, where there is an interesting incised stone to his memory
under the altar. His wife, Katherine Kempthorne, daughter of Sir Piers
Courtenay of Ugbrook, is also buried there.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
Morwenstow Church stands on the steep slope of
a hill.
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
My Saxon shrine! the only ground
  Wherein this weary heart hath rest;
What years the birds of God have found
  Along thy walls their sacred nest.
The storm, the blast, the tempest shock,
  Have beat upon those walls in vain:
She stands! a daughter of the rock,
  The changeless God’s eternal fane.

Firm was their faith, the ancient bands,
  The wise of heart in wood and stone,
Who reared with stern and trusty hands
  These dark grey towers of days unknown.
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
They filled these aisles with many a thought;
  They bade each nook some truth reveal;
The pillared arch its legend brought;
  A doctrine came with roof and wall.

Huge, mighty, massive, hard and strong,
  Were the choice stones they lifted then;
The vision of their hope was long,—
  They knew their God, those faithful men.
They pitched no tent for change or death,
  No home to last man’s shadowy day:
There, there, the everlasting breath
  Would breathe whole centuries away.
.pm verse-end

It is a church of very great interest, consisting
of nave, chancel and two aisles. The arcade of the
north aisle is remarkably fine, and of two dates.
Two semicircular arches are richly carved with
Norman zigzag and billet: one is plain, eventually
intended to be carved like the other two. The remaining
two arches are transition early English
pointed and plain. At the spring of the sculptured
arches, in the spandrels, are very spirited projecting
heads: one of a ram is remarkably well modelled.
The vicar, who mused over his church, and sought a
signification in everything, believed that this represented
the ram caught in a thicket by the horns,
and was symbolical of Christ, the true sacrifice.
Another projecting head is spirited—the mouth is
contorted with mocking laughter: this, he asserted,
was the head of Arius. Another head, with the
tongue lolling out, was a heretic deriding the sacred
mysteries.

But his most singular fancy was with respect to
the chevron ornamentation on the arcade. When
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
first I visited the church, I exclaimed at the beauty
of the zigzag moulding.

“Zigzag! zigzag!” echoed the vicar scornfully.
“Do you not see that it is near the font that this
ornament occurs? It is the ripple of the lake of
Genesareth, the Spirit breathing upon the waters
of baptism. Look without the Church—there is
the restless old ocean thundering with all his waves:
you can hear the roar even here. Look within—all
is calm: here plays over the baptismal pool only
the Dove who fans it into ripples with His healing
wings.”

The font is remarkably rude, an uncouth, misshapen
block of stone from the shore, scooped out, its
only ornamentation being a cable twisted round it,
rudely carved. The font is probably of the tenth
century.

The entrance door to the nave is of very fine
Norman work in three orders, but defaced by the
removal of the outer order, which has been converted
into the door of the porch. Mr. Hawker, observing
that the porch door was Norman, concluded that his
church possessed a unique specimen of a Norman
porch; but it was pointed out to him that his door
was nothing but the outer order of that into the
church, removed from its place; and then he determined,
as soon as he could collect sufficient money,
to restore the church, to pull down the porch, and
replace the Norman doorway in its original condition.

The church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
A little stream runs through the graveyard, and
rushes down the hill to the porch door, where it is
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
diverted, and carried off to water the glebe. This, he
thought, was brought through the churchyard for
symbolic reasons, to typify Jordan, near which the
Baptist ministered. The descent into the church is
by three steps. “Every church dedicated to John
the Baptiser,” he said in one of his sermons, “is thus
arranged. We go down into them, as those who
were about to be baptised of John went down into
the water. The Spirit that appeared when Christ
descended into Jordan hovers here, over that font,
over you, over me, and ever will hover here as long
as a stone of Morwenna’s church stands on this green
slope, and a priest of God ministers in it.” The
south arcade of the nave is much posterior to that
on the north side. One of the capitals bears the
inscription:—
.sp 1
.nf c
.if h
THIS WAS MADE ANNO MVCLX_{4 (1564).}
.if-
.if t
THIS WAS MADE ANNO MVCLX4 (1564).
.if-
.nf-

Another capital bears:—
.sp 1
.nf c
THIS IS THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
.nf-

It has been put up inverted. The arcade is rich
and good for the date.

Of the same date are the carved oak benches. A
few only are earlier, and bear the symbols of the
transfixed heart on the spear, the nails and cross.
These Mr. Hawker found laid as flooring under the
pews, their faces planed. The rest bear, on shields,
sea-monsters. There was a fine oak screen very
much earlier in style than the benches. When Mr.
Hawker arrived at Morwenstow, the clerk said to
him: “Please, your honor, I have done you a very
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
gude turn. I’ve just been and cut down and burned
a rubbishing old screen that hid the chancel.”

“You had much better have burnt yourself!” he
exclaimed. “Show me what remains.”

Only a few fragments of the richly sculptured and
gilt cornice, and one piece of tracery, remained.
The cornice represents doves flying amidst oak-leaves
and vine-branches, and a fox running after them.
The date not later than 1535, when a screen in the
same style and character was erected at Broadwood
Widger.[#]
.pm fn-start
The date is on a scroll, which is in a hand descending from the clouds,
upon one of the bench-ends. Benches and screens are of the same date.
The Morwenstow screen has been removed at the recent miserable
“restoration.” The wreckers are not extinct in Cornwall, they call themselves
architects and fall on and ravage churches.
.pm fn-end

Mr. Hawker collected every fragment, and put the
pieces together with bits of modern and poor carved
wood, and cast-iron tracery, and constructed therewith
a not ineffective rood-screen.

Outside the screen is an early incised cross in the
floor, turned with feet to the west, marking the grave
of a priest. “The flock lie with their feet to the
east, looking for the rising of the day-star. But the
pastor always rests with his head to the east, and feet
westward, that at the resurrection day, when all
rise, he may be facing those for whom he must give
an account to the Maker and Judge of all, and may
say with the prophet: Behold, I and the children
whom the Lord hath given me.”

The chancel was originally lighted by lancets,
which have, however, been blocked up and plastered
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
over. The floor he kept strewn with southernwood
and thyme, “for angels to smell to.”

The east wall was falling, and in 1849 was rebuilt,
and a stained window by Warrington inserted, given
by the late Lord Clinton. It represents St. Morwenna
teaching Editha, daughter of Ethelwolf,[#] between
St. Peter and St. Paul. The window is very
poor and coarse in drawing and in colour. The ancient
piscina in the wall is of early English date.
.pm fn-start
This, as has been already shown, is an error; he confounded St. Morwenna
of Cornwall with St. Modwenna of Burton-on-Trent. At the “restoration”
frescoes were discovered throughout the church; all but one were
wantonly destroyed.
.pm fn-end

Mr. Hawker discovered under the pavement in the
church, when reseating it, the base of a small pillar,
Norman in style, with a hole in it for a rivet which
attached to it the slender column it supported. This
he supposed was a piscina drain, and accordingly set
it up in the recess beside his altar.

Mr. Hawker used an old stable, very decayed, on
the north side of the chancel, as his vestry, and
descended by a stair from it to the church. Floor
and roof and stair are now in the last stage of
decay.

His altar was of wood, and low. He had on it
a clumsy wooden cross, without figure, vases with
bouquets of flowers, and two Cornish serpentine
candlesticks.

There was an embroidered frontal on his altar,
given him in 1843, and used for all seasons alike.
Considering the veneration in which Mr. Hawker held
holy things and places, a little more tidiness might
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
have been expected; but his altar was never very
clean, the top having strewn over it the burnt ends
of matches with which he had lighted his candles.
It had also on it a large magnifying glass, like those
often on drawing-room tables, to assist in the examination
of photographs. For a long time Mr. Hawker
used to say matins, litany and communion service
standing at his altar; but in later years his curates
introduced a reading-desk within the chancel near
the screen. A deal kitchen-table likewise served for
the furnishing of the chancel. On this he would put
his mufflers and devotional books.

The untidy condition of the church affected one
of his curates, a man of a somewhat domineering
character, to such an extent that one day he swept
up all the rubbish he could find in the church,
old decorations of the previous Christmas, decayed
southernwood and roses of the foregoing midsummer
festivity, pages of old Bibles, prayer-books and manuscript
scraps of poetry, match-ends, candle-ends, etc.;
and, having filled a barrow with all these sundries,
he wheeled it down to the vicarage door, rang the
bell, and asked for Mr. Hawker. The vicar came
into the porch.

“This is the rubbish I have found in your
church.”

“Not all,” said Mr. Hawker. “Complete the pile
by seating yourself on the top, and I will see to the
whole being shot speedily.”

In the chancel is a vine, carved in wood, which
creeps thence all along the church—an emblem,
according to him, of the Christian life.
.bn 070.png
.pn +1

.pm verse-start
Hearken! there is in old Morwenna’s shrine,—
    A lonely sanctuary of the Saxon days,
    Reared by the Severn Sea for prayer and praise—
Amid the carved work of the roof, a vine.
    Its root is where the eastern sunbeams fall
    First in the chancel; then along the wall
Slowly it travels on, a leafy line,
    With here and there a cluster, and anon
    More and more grapes, until the growth hath gone
Through arch and aisle. Hearken! and heed the sign.
    See at the altar-side the steadfast root,
    Mark well the branches, count the summer fruit:
So let a meek and faithful heart be thine,
And gather from that tree a parable divine.
.pm verse-end

Formerly, whilst saying service he kept his chancel
screen shut, and was invisible to his congregation;
but his curates afterwards insisted on the gate being
left open. The chancel is very dark.

Access to his pulpit was obtained through a narrow
opening in the screen just sixteen inches wide,
and it was a struggle for him to get through the
aperture. After a while he abandoned the attempt,
and had steps into the pulpit erected outside the
screen.

Above the screen he set up in late years a large
cross painted blue with five gold stars on it, the
cross of the heavens in the southern hemisphere.
Near the pulpit he erected a curious piece of wood-carving,
gilt and coloured, which he brought with
him from Tamerton. It represents a castle attacked
by a dragon with two heads. From the mouth of a
beardless face issues a dove, which is represented
flying towards the castle. This, he said, was an
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
allegory. The castle is the Church assailed by
Satan, the old dragon, through his twofold power,
temporal and spiritual. But the Holy Spirit proceeding
from the Son flies to the defence of the
Church. On the other side of the castle was originally
a bearded head, and a dove issuing in a similar
manner from it; but it has been broken away. This
represented the Paraclete proceeding from the Father
as from the Son.

In the churchyard of Morwenstow is a granite
tomb bearing the following inscription:—

.pm quote-centered-start
<sc>Here Liet John Maning of ...
Who Died Without Issue ...
I am Beried in
the vi Daie of Av
gvst 1601.</sc>
.pm quote-centered-end

John Manning of Stanbury, in Morwenstow, lived
in the sixteenth century. He married Christiana
Kempthorne. About six weeks after their marriage
the husband was gored by a bull in a field between
Tonacombe and Stanbury. His young bride died of
grief within the year, and was buried in this altar
tomb beside him.

The bed of this ill-fated pair, with their names
carved on the head-board, was found by Mr. Hawker
in one of the farms in the parish. He was very
anxious to get possession of it. He begged it, and
when refused offered money, but to no avail: the
farmer would not part with it. After trying persuasion,
entreaty, and offering large sums in vain,
he had recourse to another expedient.

The vicar said to the farmer: “Does it ever strike
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
you, S——, when lying in that bed, as you do of a
night, how many corpses have preceded you? There
was first of all poor John Manning, all dead and
bloody, in 1601, his side ripped up by a bull’s horns,
just where you lie so snug of a night. Then there
was his bride, Christiana, lying there, where your
wife sleeps, sobbing away her life, dying of a broken
heart. Just you think, John, when you lie there, of
that poor lone woman, how her tears dribbled all
night long over the pillow on which your wife’s head
rests. And one morning, when they came to look at
her, <sc>SHE WAS DEAD</sc>. That was two hundred and fifty
years ago. What a lot of corpses have occupied that
bed, where you and your wife lie, since then! Think
of it, John, of a night, and tell your wife to do the same.
I dare say the dead flesh has struck a chill into the
bed, that the feel of it makes you creep all over at
times at dead of night. Doesn’t it, John? Two
hundred and fifty years ago! That is about five
generations—five men washed and laid out, their
chins tied up on your pillow, John, and their dead
eyes looking up at your ceiling; and five wives dead
and laid out there too, and measured for their coffins,
just where your wife sleeps so warm. And then,
John, consider, it’s most likely some of these farmers
were married again, so we may say there were at
least six or seven female corpses, let alone dead
babies, in that bed. Why, John, there have been at
least fourteen corpses in that bed, including John
Manning bleeding to death, and Christiana weeping
her life away. Think of that of a night. You will
find it conducive to good.”
.bn 073.png
.pn +1

“Parson,” said the farmer aghast, “I can never
sleep in that bed no more. You may take it, and
welcome.”

So Mr. Hawker got the Manning bed, and set it
up in the room that commanded the tomb in the
churchyard; “so that the bed may look at the grave,
and the grave at the bed,” as he expressed it.

The writer in <i>The Standard</i>, already quoted, thus
describes his first acquaintance with the vicar of
Morwenstow:—

.pm letter-start
It was on a solemn occasion that we first saw Morwenstow.
The sea was still surly and troubled, with wild lights breaking
over it, and torn clouds driving through the sky. Up from the
shore, along a narrow path between jagged rocks and steep
banks tufted with thrift, came the vicar, wearing cassock and
surplice, and conducting a sad procession, which bore along
with it the bodies of two seamen flung up the same morning on
the sands. The office used by Mr. Hawker at such times had
been arranged by himself—not without reference to certain
peculiarities, which, as he conceived, were features of the
primitive Cornish Church, the same which had had its bishops
and its traditions long before the conference of Augustine with
its leaders under the great oak by the Severn. Indeed, at one
time he carried his adhesion to these Cornish traditions to
some unusual lengths. There was, we remember, a peculiar
yellow vestment, in which he appeared much like a Lama of
Thibet, which he wore in his house and about his parish, and
which he insisted was an exact copy of a priestly robe worn by
St. Padarn and St. Teilo. We have seen him in this attire
proceeding through the lanes on the back of a well-groomed
mule—the only fitting beast, as he remarked, for a Churchman.
.pm letter-end

We have here one instance out of many of the
manner in which the vicar delighted in hoaxing visitors.
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
The yellow vestment in question was a poncho. It
came into use in the following manner:—

Mr. Martyn, a neighbour, was in conversation one
day with Mr. Hawker, when the latter complained
that he could not get a greatcoat to his fancy.

“Why not wear a poncho?” asked Mr. Martyn.

“Poncho! what is that?” inquired the vicar.

“Nothing but a blanket with a hole in the
middle.”

“Do you put your legs through the hole, and tie
the four corners over your head?”

“No,” answered Mr. Martyn. “I will fetch you
my poncho, and you can try it on.” The poncho was
brought: it was a dark blue one, and the vicar was
delighted with it. There was no trouble in putting
it on. It suited his fancy amazingly; and next time
he went to Bideford he bought a yellowish-brown
blanket, and had a hole cut in the middle, through
which to thrust his head.

“I wouldn’t wear your livery, Martyn,” said he,
“nor your political colours, so I have got a yellow
poncho.”

Those who knew him well can picture to themselves
the sly twinkle in his eye as he informed his
credulous visitor that he was invested in the habit of
St. Padarn and St. Teilo.

After a few years at Morwenstow in a hired house,
the vicar set to work to build himself a vicarage near
the church. He chose a spot where he saw lambs
take shelter from storm; not so much because he
thought the spot a “lew” one (that is, a sheltered
one), as from the fancy that the refuge of the lambs
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
should typify the vicarage, the sheltering-place of his
flock.

Whilst he was building it Mr. Daniel King came
over to see him, and was shown the house in course
of erection. Mr. Daniel King and Mr. Hawker were
not very cordial friends.

“Ha!” said Mr. King, “you know the proverb—‘Fools
build houses for wise men to live in.’”

“Yes,” answered the vicar promptly; “and I
know another—‘Wise men make proverbs, and
fools quote them.’”

He had the chimneys of the vicarage built to resemble
the towers of churches with which he had
had to do: one was like Tamerton, another like Magdalen
Hall, a third resembled Wellcombe, a fourth
Morwenstow.

When Archdeacon, afterwards Bishop, Wilberforce
came into the neighbourhood to advocate the cause
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, he
met Mr. Hawker.

“Look here,” said Archdeacon Wilberforce, “I
have to speak at the meeting at Stratton to-night,
and I am told that there is a certain Mr. Knight[#*:pseudo#]
who will be on the platform, and is a wearyful speaker.
I have not much time to spare. Is it possible by a
hint to reduce him to reasonable limits?”

“Not in the least: he is impervious to hints.”

“Can he not be prevented from rising to address
the meeting?”

“That is impossible: he is irrepressible.”

“Then what is to be done?”

“Leave him to me, and he will not trouble you.”
.bn 076.png
.pn +1

At the S.P.G. meeting a crowd had gathered to
hear the eloquent speaker. Mr. Tom Knight was on
the platform, waiting his opportunity to rise.

“Oh, Knight!” said Mr. Hawker in a whisper, “the
archdeacon has left his watch behind, and mine is
also at home; will you lend yours for timing the
speeches?”

With some hesitation Mr. Knight pulled his gold
repeater, with bunch of seals attached, from his fob,
and gave it to the vicar of Morwenstow.

Presently Mr. Knight was on his legs to make a
speech. Now, the old gentleman was accustomed,
when addressing a public audience, to swing his
bunch of seals round and round in his left hand.
Directly he began his oration, his hand went instinctively
to his fob in quest of the bunch: it was not
there. He stammered, and felt again, floundered in
his speech, and, after a few feeble efforts to recover
himself, and find his bunch of seals, sat down, red
and melting and angry.

Mr. Hawker had a pair of stags which he called
Robin Hood and Maid Marian, given to him by the
late Sir Thomas Acland, from his park at Killerton.
These he kept in the long open combe in front of the
house, through which a stream dashes onwards to
the sea. One day the same Mr. Knight proceeded
too curiously to approach Robin Hood, when the
deer ran at him and butted him down. The clergyman
shrieked with fear, and the stag would have
struck him with his antlers had not the vicar rushed
to the rescue. Being an immensely strong man, he
caught Robin by the horns, and drew his head back,
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
and held him fast whilst the frightened man crawled
away.

“I was myself in some difficulty,” said Mr. Hawker,
when telling the story. “The stag would have turned
on me when I let go, and I did not quite see my way
to escape; but that wretched man did nothing but
yell for his wig and hat, which had come off and
were under the deer’s feet; as if my life were of no
account beside his foxy old wig and battered beaver.”

Dr. Phillpotts, the late Bishop of Exeter, not long
after this occurred, came to Morwenstow to visit Mr.
Hawker. Whilst being shown the landscape from
the garden, the bishop’s eye rested on Robin Hood.

“Why! that stag which butted and tossed Mr.
Knight is still suffered to live! It might have killed
him.”

“No great loss, my lord,” said Mr. Hawker. “He
is very Low Church.”

Early next morning loud cries for assistance penetrated
the vicar’s bedroom. Looking from his window,
he beheld the bishop struggling with Robin
Hood, who, like his fellow of Sherwood, seems to
have had little respect for episcopal dignity. Robin
had taken a fancy to the bishop’s apron, and, gently
approaching, had secured one corner in his mouth.

There is a story of a Scottish curate, who, when
Jenny Geddes seized him by his “prelatical” gown
as he was passing into the pulpit, quietly loosed the
strings, and allowed Jenny and the gown to fall backward
together. There was no such luck for the
bishop. He sought in vain to unfasten the apron,
which descended farther and farther into Robin’s
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
throat, until the vicar, coming to the rescue, restored
the apron to daylight, and sent the “masterful thief”
about his business.

Mr. Hawker accompanied the late Bishop of Exeter
on his first visit to Tintagel, and delighted in telling
how the scene, then far more out of the world than
it can now be considered, impressed the powerful
mind of Dr. Phillpotts. He stood alone for some
time on the extreme edge of the castle cliff, while
the sun went down before him in the tumbling, foaming
Atlantic a blaze of splendour, flaking the rocks
and ruined walls with orange and carmine; and as
he turned away he muttered the line from Zanga:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
I like this rocking of the battlements.
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
Another visitor to Morwenstow was the Poet
Laureate; he presented himself at the door, and sent
in his card, and was received with cordiality and hospitality
by the vicar, who, however, was not sure that
the stranger was the poet. After lunch they walked
together on the cliffs, and Mr. Hawker pointed to the
Tonacombe Brook forming a cascade into the sea.

“Falling like a broken purpose,” he observed.

“You are quoting my lines,” said the Poet Laureate.

“And thus it was,” as Mr. Hawker said when
relating the incident, “that I learned whom I was
entertaining.” He flattered himself that it was he
who had introduced the Arthurian cycle of legends
to Tennyson’s notice.

Charles Kingsley also owed to Mr. Hawker his
first introduction to scenery which he afterwards
rendered famous. Stowe and Chapel, places which
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
figured so largely in <i>Westward Ho!</i> were explored
by them together; and the vicar of Morwenstow was
struck, as every one must have been struck who accompanied
Mr. Kingsley under similar circumstances,
by the wonderful insight and skill which seized at
once on the most characteristic features of the scene,
and found at the instant the fitting words in which to
describe them.

Mr. Hawker, for his own part, not only did this for
his own corner of Cornwall, but threw into his prose
and his poetry the peculiar feeling of the district, the
subtle aroma which, in less skilful hands, is apt to
vanish altogether.

His ballads found their way into numerous publications
without his name being appended to them,
and sometimes were fathered on other writers. In a
letter to T. Carnsew, Esq., dated 2nd January, 1858,
he says as much.

.pm letter-start
<sc>My Dear Sir</sc>,—A happy New Year to yours and you,
and many of them! as we say in the West. The kind interest
you have taken in young Blight’s book[#] induces me to send you
the royal reply to my letter. Through Col. Phipps to the Queen
I sent a simple statement of the case, and asked leave for the
youth to be allowed to dedicate his forthcoming book to the
Duke of Cornwall. I did not, between ourselves, expect to
succeed, because no such thing has hitherto been permitted,
and also because I was utterly unknown, thank God, at Court.
But it has been always my fate to build other people’s houses.
For others I usually succeed; for myself, always fail. Let me
tell you one strange thing. Every year of my life for full ten
years I have had to write to some publisher, editor or author,
to claim the paternity of a legend or a ballad or a page of prose,
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
which others have been attempting to foist on the public as
their own. Last year I had to rescue a legendary ballad—“The
Sisters of Glennecten”—from the claims of a Mr. H. of Exeter
College.[#] Yesterday I wrote for the January number of
<i>Blackwood</i>, wherein I see published “The Bells of Bottreaux,”
a name and legend which, if any one should claim, I say with
Jack Cade, “He lies, for I invented it myself!”
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
<i>Ancient Crosses in Cornwall</i>, by J. T. Blight. Penzance, 1858.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
The mysterious sisters really lived and died in North Devon. Mr.
Hawker transplanted the story to St. Knighton’s Kieve. Any
attempt in prose or verse to associate these sisters with
Glennecten he afterwards resented as a literary theft.
.pm fn-end

“The Silent Tower of Bottreaux” is one of his
best ballads. To the poem he appends the following
note:[#] “The rugged heights that line the seashore in
the neighbourhood of Tintagel Castle and Church are
crested with towers. Among these, that of Bottreaux
Castle, or, as it is now written, Boscastle, is without
bells. The silence of this wild and lonely churchyard
on festive or solemn occasions is not a little
striking. On inquiring as to the cause, the legend
related in the text was told me, as a matter of implicit
belief in those parts.”
.pm fn-start
<i>Ecclesia</i>: a volume of poems. Oxford, 1840. Really, the
church of Forrabury on the height above Boscastle, which is a
hamlet in the parish of Forrabury.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
<l>THE SILENT TOWER OF BOTTREAUX.</l>

Tintagel bells ring o’er the tide:
The boy leans on his vessel’s side;
He hears that sound, and dreams of home
Soothe the wild orphan of the foam.
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      Thus saith their pealing chime:
      “Youth, manhood, old age, past,
      Come to thy God at last!”
.bn 081.png
.pn +1

But why are Bottreaux’s echoes still?
Her tower stands proudly on the hill:
Yet the strange chough that home hath found,
The lamb lies sleeping on the ground.
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      Should be her answering chime.
      “Come to thy God at last!”
      Should echo on the blast.

The ship rode down with courses free,
The daughter of a distant sea:
Her sheet was loose, her anchor stored,
The merry Bottreaux bells on board.
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      Rang out Tintagel chime.
      “Youth, manhood, old age, past,
      Come to thy God at last!”

The pilot heard his native bells
Hang on the breeze in fitful swells.
“Thank God!” with reverent brow he cried:
“We make the shore with evening’s tide.”
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      It was his marriage-chime.
      Youth, manhood, old age, past,
      His bell must ring at last.

Thank God, thou whining knave, on land!
But thank at sea, the steersman’s hand,
The captain’s voice above the gale,
Thank the good ship and ready sail.
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      Sad grew the boding chime,
      “Come to thy God at last!”
      Boomed heavy on the blast.

Up rose that sea, as if it heard
The mighty Master’s signal word.
What thrills the captain’s whitening lip?
The death-groans of his sinking ship!
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      Swung deep the funeral chime.
      “Grace, mercy, kindness, past,
      Come to thy God at last!”

Long did the rescued pilot tell,
When grey hairs o’er his forehead fell,—
While those around would hear and weep,—
That fearful judgment of the deep.
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      He read his native chime:
      Youth, manhood, old age, past,
      His bell rung out at last!

Still, when the storm of Bottreaux’s waves
Is wakening in his weedy caves,
Those bells that sullen surges hide
Peal their deep notes beneath the tide.
      “Come to thy God in time!”
      Thus saith the ocean chime:
      “Storm, billow, whirlwind, past,
      Come to thy God at last!”
.pm verse-end

I may be allowed, as this is a gossiping book, here
to tell a story of Boscastle, which came to my ears
when staying there a few years ago, and which is
true.

There lived at Boscastle, within twenty years, an
old seafaring man whom we will call Daddy Tregellas—his
real name has escaped me. A widow in
the village died, leaving a fair young daughter of
eighteen, very delicate and consumptive, without a
home or relation. Daddy Tregellas had known the
widow and felt great pity for the orphan, but how to
help her he did not see. After much turning the
matter over in his mind he thought the only way
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
in which he could make her a home and provide her
with comforts without giving the gossips occasion
to talk, was by marrying her. And married accordingly
they were. The Boscastle people to this day
tell of the tenderness of the old man for his young,
delicate wife; it was that of a father for a daughter,—how
he watched the carnation spots on her cheek
with intense anxiety and listened with anguish to
her cough; how he walked out with her on the
cliffs, wrapping shawls round her; and sat in church
with his eyes fixed on her whilst she sang, listened or
prayed. The beautiful girl was his idol, his pet.

She languished in spite of all his care. He nursed
her through her illness like a mother, with his rough,
brown hand as gentle as that of a woman. She died
propped up in bed, with her chestnut hair flowing
over his blue sailor’s jersey, as he held her head on
his breast.

When he had laid his pet in Forrabury churchyard
the light of his life was extinguished. The old
man wandered about the cliffs all day, in sunshine
and in storm, growing more hollow-cheeked and dull-eyed,
his thin hair lank, his back bowed, speaking to
no one and breaking slowly but surely.

But Mr. Avery, the shipbuilder, about this time
laid the keel of a little vessel, and she was reared in
Boscastle haven. The new ship interested the old
man, and when the figure-head was set up he fancied
he traced in it a likeness to his dead wife.

“It is—it is the Pet,” faltered the old man.

The owner heard the exclamation and said: “So
shall it be. She shall be called <i>The Pet</i>.”
.bn 084.png
.pn +1

And now the old love, which had wound itself
round the wife, began to attach itself to the little
vessel. Every day the old man was on the quay
watching the growth of <i>The Pet</i>; he could not bear
her out of his sight. When <i>The Pet</i> was ready
to be launched Mr. Avery offered Tregellas the position
of captain to her. The old man’s joy was
full; he took the command and sailed for Bristol
for coals.

One stormy day, when a furious west wind was
driving upon the land and bowling mountains of
green water against the coast, it was noised that a
vessel was visible scudding before the wind in dangerous
proximity to the shore. The signal-rock was
speedily crowded with anxious watchers. The coast-guardsman
observed her attentively with his glass
and said: “It is <i>The Pet</i>. The hatchways are all
closed.”

Eyes watched her bounding through the waves,
now on the summit of a huge green billow, now deep
in its trough, till she was lost to sight in the rain
and spondrift.

That was the last seen of <i>The Pet</i>; she, with old
Daddy Tregellas and all on board, went to the bottom
in that dreadful storm.

Boscastle is a hamlet of quaint, gabled, weather-beaten
cottages, inhabited by sailors, clinging to
the steep sides of the hills that dip rapidly to the
harbour, a mere cleft in the rocks, in shape like
an S.

The entrance is between huge precipices of black
rock, one of them scooped out into a well; it is the
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
resort of countless gulls, which breed along the ledges.
The harbour is masked by an islet of rock covered by
a meagre crop of sea-grass and thrift.

Mr. Claud Hawker, the brother of the subject of
this memoir, resided till his death at Penally in
Boscastle.
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch04
CHAPTER IV
.pm ch-hd-start
Mr. Hawker’s Politics—Election of 1857—His Zeal for the Labourers—“The
Poor Man and his Parish Church”—Letter to a Landlord—Death
of his Man, Tape—Kindness to the Poor—Verses over his Door—Reckless
Charity—Hospitality—A Breakdown—His Eccentric Dress—The
Devil and his Barn—His Ecclesiastical Vestments—Ceremonial—The
Nine Cats—The Church Garden—Kindness to Animals—The
Rooks and Jackdaws—The Well of St. John—Letter to a Young
Man entering the University.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.4 0.7
<sc>Mr. Hawker</sc> in politics, as far as he had
any, was a Liberal; and in 1857 he
voted for Mr. Robartes, afterwards Lord
Robartes.

.pm letter-start
<sc>March 26, 1857.</sc> <i>My Dear Sir</i>,—Your mangold is remarkably
fine. I must, of course, visit Stratton, to vote for Robartes;
and I do wish I could be told how far a few votes would throw
out Kendall by helping Carew, then I would give the latter
one. If I can contrive to call at Flexbury, I will; but Mrs.
Hawker is so worried by bad eyes that she will not risk the
roads. Last time we were annoyed by some rascals, who
came after the carriage, shouting, “Kendall and protection!”
It will be a dark infamy for Cornwall if Nick, the traitor to
every party, should get in. Tom S—— has been out to-day,
blustering for Nick, but, when asked what party he belonged
to, could not tell. How should he? A note from M——
to-night, dated Bude, informs me that he is there. I am glad
to find that, though not yet registered as a Cornish voter, his
heart and wishes are for Robartes. It will always be to me a
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
source of pride, that I was the first, or well-nigh, I think,
the only clergyman in this deanery who voted for a Free-trade
candidate. Yours, my dear sir, faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
.pm letter-start
<sc>J. Carnsew</sc>, Esq.
.sp 2
... I cannot conclude without a word about the mighty
theme of elections. When Carew’s address arrived, and I read
it to Mrs. Hawker, her remark was: “It doesn’t ring well.”
Nor did it. There were sneaky symptoms about it. S——
writes that “sinister influence, apart from political, has been
brought to bear against Carew.” We save a breakfast by this;
for Mrs. Hawker had announced her intention to give one, as
she did last time, to Mr. Robartes’ voters; and I save what is
to me important—a ride. When I was in Oxford, there was
a well-known old man, Dr. Crowe, public officer, etc. He had
risen from small beginnings, and therefore he was a man of
mind. Somewhat rough, and so much the better, as old wine
is. Him the young, thoughtless fellows delighted to tease after
dinner in the common-room, over their wine at New College.
(N.B.—The rumour used to run, that, when the fellows of the
college retired from the hall, the butler went before, with a
warming-pan, which he passed over the seat of every stuffed
chair, that the reverend fogies might not catch cold as they sat
down.) Well, one day, said a junior to old Crowe: “Do you
know, Dr. C., what has happened to Jem Ward?”—“No, not
I. Is he hanged?”—“Oh, no! they say he is member of
Parliament.”—“Well, what of that?”—“Oh, but consider
what a thing for a fellow like that to get into the House of
Commons—such a <i>blackguard</i>!”—“And pray, young man,
where should a blackguard go, but into the House of Commons,
eh?”

Good-night, dear sir, good-night. Yours faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
But Mr. Hawker’s sympathies were by no means
bound up with one party. He was as enthusiastic
in 1873 for the return of a Conservative member for
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
Exeter, as he had been in 1857 for that of a Free-trade
candidate for East Cornwall.

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Dec. 11, 1873. <i>My dear Mr. and Mrs.
Mills</i>,—The good tidings of your success in Exeter has only
just arrived in our house; and I make haste to congratulate
you, and to express our hearty sympathy with Mr. Mills’ great
triumph. Only yesterday Mr. M—— was here, and we were
discussing the probabilities and chances of the majority. I had
heard from Powderham Castle that the contest would be severe,
and the run close; but every good man’s wishes and sympathies
were with Mr. Mills. I hope that God will bless and succour
him, and make his election an avenue of good and usefulness
to his kind, which I am sure you both will value beyond the
mere honour and rank. Our men heard guns last night, but
could not decide whether the sound came from Bude or Lundy.
But to-day I heard there were great and natural rejoicings
around your Efford home. How you must have exulted also at
your husband’s strong position in London, and at the School
Board! He must have been very deeply appreciated there,
and will, of course, succeed to the chairmanship of his district.
You will be sorry to hear that Mr. R——[#] has disappointed us,
and will not be back again until after Christmas. So, although
I am so weak that I can hardly stagger up to the church, and
I incur deadly risk, I must go through my duty on Sunday.
Our dutiful love to you both. I am, yours ever faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
A clergyman on whom he had calculated for his assistance in his
services.
.pm fn-end

It was his intense sympathy with the poor that
constituted the Radicalism in Mr. Hawker’s opinions.
A thorough-going Radical he was not, for he was
filled with the most devoted veneration for the Crown
and Constitution; but his tender heart bled for the
labourer, whom he regarded as the sufferer through
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
protection, and he fired up at what he regarded as
an injustice. When he broke forth into words, it was
with the eloquence and energy of a prophet. What
can be more vigorous and vehement than the following
paper, which he wrote in 1861?
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
There are in Morwenstow about six thousand acres of
arable land, rented by seventy farmers; forty large, and thirty
small.

There are less than sixty able-bodied labourers, and twenty-five
half-men, at roads, etc.

With this proportion of one labourer to a hundred acres,
there can be no lack of <i>employ</i>.

The rate of wages is eight shillings a week, paid, not in
money, but by truck of corn.

A fixed agreement of a hundred and thirty-five pounds of
corn, or eighteen gallons (commonly called seven scores), is
allotted to each man in lieu of fourteen shillings, be the market
price what it will.

A man with a wife and three or four children will consume
the above quantity of corn in fourteen days.

Therefore, such a man, receiving for his fortnight’s work
fourteen shillings’ worth of corn, will only leave in his master’s
hand one shilling a week, which one shilling usually is paid for
house-rent.

Now, this inevitable outlay for the loaf and for the rent
will leave—for fuel, for shoes, for clothing, for groceries, for
tools, for club ... <i>nil</i>: 0<i>l.</i> 0<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>

<i>But, but.</i> But in the year 1860-61, the fourteen shillings
paid for that corn will only yield in flour and meal ten shillings
and sixpence, the millers being judges.

“If a man have only a wife and two children to house and
feed, his surplus money above his bread and rent will be one
shilling (?) a week beyond the above example.” <i>But</i>, <i>but</i>, in the
recited list of exigencies, will that suffice?

It was from a knowledge of the state of the parish, that I
assented to the collection, of which I enclose a statement.
.bn 090.png
.pn +1

Two farmers only had the audacity to allege that the effort
was uncalled for; and a labourer of one of these must have gone
barefooted to his work the whole winter, had not the money for
a pair of shoes been advanced to him by the victim of the parish.

It appears to be a notion entertained by a chief patron
of all our charities, that the wages and the treatment of the
labourers in Kilkhampton are more favourable than in Morwenstow.
<i>But, but, but</i>——

What is the weekly wage?

How paid?

If in corn, at what price?

And are there contracts in other respects?

These are not questions which I want to be answered, but
only questions for your own private consideration.
.pm letter-end
A letter narrating the success of this appeal is in
my hands, and may find a place here.
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
<sc>Feb. 21, 1861.</sc> <i>My dear Sir</i>,—I have postponed replying
to your last letter until I could acquaint you with the progress
or result of the subscriptions to the poor. Lord J. Thynne has
given five pounds; Mr. Dayman, three pounds; Messrs. Cann
and Harris, churchwardens, one pound each; other parishioners,
about three or four pounds. So that we shall divide
twenty-five pounds and upwards among the really destitute.
I am much obliged to you for your readiness to allow my
influence to count with that of others in the parish; but the
reference in my letter to the churchwardens was to the past,
and not altogether to the future. Be this as it may, when
Moses languishes, manna falls, thank God!

You will be sorry to hear that Mrs. H—— is very ill. Her
attack is so full of peril, and demands such incessant medical
succour, that Capt. H—— resolved on removing her while she
could be moved to London, to the charge of her accustomed
doctor; and thither they went last Monday. Our loss is deep.
It was indeed a gift from God to have a thorough lady and
gentleman in the parish to appreciate the utterance of truth,
and the effects of duty: it was indeed a happiness, and it is
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
now gone. Mrs. H—— had taken great trouble with our choir.
Every Thursday evening she has allowed them to come to learn
the musical scale, and they were fast learning to read and sing
the notes.

We have been visited of late by the new kind of hurricane,
the [Greek: ky/klôn], or whirl. It is just as fierce and strong as the old
storm; but the scene of its onslaught is rigidly local: indeed,
we might almost call them parochial. They had theirs at
Kilkhampton two days before Mr. T——’s christening. The
Poughill rush was the week after the vicar brought home his
wife. A pinnacle was snapped off there, and the wall of the
church rent. At Kilkhampton the damage done was in the
immediate vicinity of the church. We had ours last night, but
the church did not suffer harm, although two-thirds of the roof
are rotten, and the pinnacles overhang. Lent is always the
demon’s time, and the strength of evil. A woman who is just
come in tells me that the new chimney in the kitchen at Tidnacombe
was blown down last night, and is now lying on the roof
in fragments. Yours faithfully,
.in 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
The energy with which he upheld the cause of the
labourer was one cause of some unreasonable resentment
against him being felt by the farmers; and this
explains his expression “the victim of the parish,”
in reference to himself in his appeal.

The same intense sympathy with the poor and the
down-trodden breaks out in his ballad, “The Poor
Man and his Parish Church,” of which I insert a few
verses:—

.pm verse-start
The poor have hands and feet and eyes,
  Flesh, and a feeling mind:
They breathe the breath of mortal sighs,
  They are of human kind;
They weep such tears as others shed,
  And now and then they smile;
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
For sweet to them is that poor bread
  They win with honest toil.

The poor men have their wedding-day,
  And children climb their knee:
They have not many friends, for they
  Are in such misery.
They sell their youth, their skill, their pains,
  For hire in hill and glen:
The very blood within their veins,
  It flows for other men.

They should have roofs to call their own
  When they grow old and bent—
Meek houses built of dark grey stone,
  Worn labourer’s monument.
There should they dwell beneath the thatch,
  With threshold calm and free:
No stranger’s hand should lift the latch
  To mark their poverty.

Fast by the church these walls should stand,
  Her aisles in youth they trod:
They have no home in all the land
  Like that old house of God!
There, there, the sacrament was shed
  That gave them heavenly birth,
And lifted up the poor man’s head
  With princes of the earth.

There in the chancel’s voice of praise
  Their simple vows were poured,
And angels looked with equal gaze
  On Lazarus and his Lord.
There, too, at last, they calmly sleep,
  Where hallowed blossoms bloom;
And eyes as fond and faithful weep
  As o’er the rich man’s tomb.
.pm verse-end
.hr 10%
.pm verse-start
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
I know not why; but when they tell
  Of houses fair and wide,
Where troops of poor men go to dwell
  In chambers side by side,
I dream of an old cottage door,
  With garlands overgrown,
And wish the children of the poor
  Had flowers to call their own.

And when they vaunt that in these walls
  They have their worship-day,
Where the stern signal coldly calls
  The prisoned poor to pray,
I think upon an ancient home
  Beside the churchyard wall,
Where roses round the porch would roam,
  And gentle jasmines fall.

I see the old man of my lay,
  His grey head bowed and bare:
He kneels by our dear wall to pray,
  The sunlight in his hair.
Well! they may strive, as wise men will,
  To work with wit and gold:
I think my own dear Cornwall still
  Was happier of old.

Oh, for the poor man’s church again,
  With one roof over all,
Where the true hearts of Cornishmen
  Might beat beside the wall!
The altars where, in holier days,
  Our fathers were forgiven,
Who went with meek and faithful ways,
  Through the old aisles, to heaven!
.pm verse-end

A letter to one of the landlords in his parish shows
how vehemently Mr. Hawker could urge the claims
of one of the farmers.
.bn 094.png
.pn +1

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, May 21, 1867. <i>My dear Mr. Martyn</i>,—Just
as I was about to write to you on other matters, your
advertisement for the letting of your lands reached me. It is
not, of course, my duty to express any opinion between landlord
and tenant, or to give utterance to my sympathy with any
one candidate over another; yet there is a matter on which I
am sure you will forgive me if I venture to touch. It is on
the tenancy of your farm of Ruxmoore by Cann. He has
been my churchwarden during the whole of his last term. He
and his have been the most faithful adherents to the church of
their baptism in my whole parish; and he has been to me so
sincere and attached a friend in his station of life, that he
without Ruxmoore, or Ruxmoore without the Canns, would be
to me an utterly inconceivable regret. It was I who first introduced
him to the choice of your family, twenty-eight years
agone; and throughout the whole of that time he has been,
in his humble way, entirely faithful to me and to you. I do
not imagine that you intend to exclude him from your farm,
but I venture to hope that you will put me in possession confidentially
of your wishes in regard to his future tenancy. Do
you mean that he shall tender as before? and does your valuation
of his part of your land ascend? He is not aware that I
write to you hereon; and, if you are disinclined to answer my
questions, I hope you will allow me to record my hearty hope
and trust that you will give him the preference over other new and
local candidates, in or out of Morwenstow. I have firm confidence
in the justice and mercy of your heart. But you must
not infer that Cann alone of all your tenants is, or has been,
the object of my special regard.... In Wellcombe, B——,
whom you remember, no doubt, by name, is one of my regular
communicants. And now the very kind and generous sympathy
which Mrs. Martyn and yourself have shown towards my school
demands a detail of our success.

The children on the day-school books amount to sixty-three.
The inspectors (diocesan) pronounce it to be the most satisfactory
school in their district. I always visit and instruct the
children in person once a week. Mrs. Hawker has had a singing
class of boys and girls weekly at the vicarage. But this
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
duty and the harmonium in church are now undertaken by Mrs.
T——, for a reason that will readily suggest itself to your
mind. But why should I hesitate to avow to old friends that
we expect another guest at the vicarage? How I hope that
God may grant us a boy, that I may utter the words of the
fathers of holy time, “My son, my son!”
.pm letter-end
.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Jan. 22, 1857. <i>My dear Sir</i>,—It is no
longer possible to nourish the project which I have all along,
every week and day, intended to essay, <i>viz.</i>, a journey down to
Flexbury Hall. We have continually talked of it, more than
once fixed the day, but we have been as singularly prevented
as if some evil spirit had it at heart to hinder our purpose. And
these obstacles have very often been occurrences full of pain,
domestic or personal. You have no doubt heard of the frightful
accident to poor old George Tape, my caretaker and very
excellent servant. He lived all his early life with old Mr.
Shearm, here in the old Vicarage House; was sexton twenty-five
years; worked with me from 1835 to 1851; then visited
Australia as a gold-digger; returned about two years agone
with enough to live on, aided by a little work, and came back
to be again my hind at Michaelmas last. He was, therefore, a
long-accustomed face, almost as one of my own family. You
will, therefore, understand the shock when we heard a man
rushing up stairs to our little sitting-room with the tale of fear;
and on going down, I found poor George seated in a chair, with
the hand crushed into pulp below the wrist, and dangling by
the naked sinews. I made a rude tourniquet, in haste, of a
silk handkerchief and short stick, and so the hemorrhage was
stopped. We got him home. I was with him nearly all night,
and the next day till he died; but the amputation I could not
witness. We found two fingers and other pieces of flesh
among the barley afterwards.... I remain yours, my dear
sir, very faithfully,
.ti 15
<i>R. S. Hawker</i>.

<sc>T. Carnsew</sc>, Esq.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
The generosity of the vicar to the poor knew no
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
bounds. It was not always discreet, but his compassionate
heart could not listen to a tale of suffering
unaffected; nay, more, the very idea that others were
in want impelled him to seek them out at all times,
to relieve their need.

On cold winter nights, if he felt the frost to be
very keen, the idea would enter his head that such
and such persons had not above one blanket on their
beds, or that they had gone, without anything to
warm their vitals, to the chill damp attics where they
slept. Then he would stamp about the house, collecting
warm clothing and blankets, bottles of wine,
and any food he could find in the larder, and laden
with them, attended by a servant, go forth on his
rambles, and knock up the cottagers, that he might
put extra blankets on their beds, or cheer them with
port wine and cold pie.

The following graphic description of one of these
night missions is given in the words of an old workman
named Vinson.
.pm letter-start
It was a very cold night in the winter of 1874-75, about half-past
nine: he called me into the house, and said: “The poor
folk up at Shop will all perish this very night of cold. John
Ode is ill, and cannot go: can you get there alive?”

“If you please, sir, I will, if you’ll allow me,” I said.

“Take them these four bottles of brandy,” he says; and he
brought up four bottles with never so much as the corks drawed.
“Now,” says he, “what will you have yourself?” And I says,
“Gin, if you plase, sir,” I says. And he poured me out gin and
water; and then he gi’ed me a lemonade bottle of gin for me
to put in my side-pocket. “That’ll keep you alive,” he says,
“before you come back.” So he fulled me up before I started,
and sent me off to Shop, to four old people’s houses, with a bottle
of brandy for each. And then he says: “There’s two shillings
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
for yourself; and you keep pulling at that bottle, and you’ll
keep yourself alive afore you come back.” So I went there,
and delivered the bottles; and I’d had enough before I started
to bring me home again, so I didn’t uncork my bottle of gin.

And it isn’t once, it’s scores o’ times, he’s looked out o’
window, after I’ve going home at night, and shouted to me:
“Here, stay! come back, Vinson,” and he’s gone into the
larder, and cut off great pieces of meat, and sent me with
them, and p’raps brandy or wine, to some poor soul; and he
always gi’ed me a shilling, either then or next day, for myself,
besides meat and drink.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
“They are crushed down, my poor people,” he
would say with energy, stamping about his room—“ground
down with poverty, with a wretched wage,
the hateful truck system, till they are degraded in
mind and body.” It was a common saying of his,
“If I eat and drink, and see my poor hunger and
thirst, I am not a minister of Christ, but a lion that
lurketh in his den to ravish the poor.”

The monetary value of the living was £365. He
wrote up over the porch of his vicarage—

.pm verse-start
A house, a glebe, a pound a day,
A pleasant place to watch and pray:
Be true to Church, be kind to poor,
O minister, for evermore!
.pm verse-end
Of his overflowing kindness to the shipwrecked,
mention shall be made in another chapter. The
many sufferers whom he rescued from the water,
housed, fed, nursed and clothed, and sent away
with liberal gifts, always spoke of his charity with
warmth and gratitude. In no one instance would he
accept compensation for the deeds of charity which
he performed. He received letters of thanks for his
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
services to the shipwrecked from shipowners in Norway,
Denmark, France, Scotland and Cornwall, who
had lost vessels on this fatal coast, as well as from
the Consuls of the several nations.

Like his grandfather, Dr. Hawker, he was ready
to give away everything he had; and he was at times
in straitened circumstances, owing to the open house
he kept, and the profusion with which he gave away
to the necessitous.

This inconsiderate generosity sometimes did harm
to those who received it. One instance will suffice.

The vicar of Morwenstow had, some years ago, a
servant, whom we will call Stanlake: the man may
be still alive, and therefore his real name had better
not be given to the world.

One day Mr. Hawker ordered his carriage to drive
to Bideford, some twenty miles distant. The weather
was raw and cold. He was likely to be absent all
day, as he was going on to Barnstaple by train to
consult his doctor. His compassion was roused by
the thought of Stanlake having forty miles of drive
in the cold, and a day of lounging about in the raw
December air; and just as he stepped into the
carriage he produced a bottle of whisky, and gave
it to Stanlake.

Mr. Hawker was himself a most abstemious man:
he drank only water, and never touched wine, spirits,
or beer.

On the way to Bideford, at Hoops, thinking the
coachman looked blue with cold, the vicar ordered
him a glass of hot brandy and water. When he
reached Bideford station he said: “Now, Stanlake, I
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
shall be back by the half-past four train: mind you
meet me with the carriage.”

“All right, sir.”

But Mr. Hawker did not arrive by the half-past
four train.

Up till that hour Stanlake had kept sober, he had
not touched his bottle of whisky; but finding that
his master did not arrive, and that time hung heavily
on his hands, he retired to the stable, uncorked the
bottle, and drank it off.

At six o’clock Mr. Hawker arrived at Bideford.
There was no carriage at the station to meet him.
He hurried to the inn where he put up, and ordered
his conveyance. He was told that his man was
incapable.

“Send him to me, send him here,” he thundered,
pacing the coffee-room in great excitement.

“Please, sir, he is under a heap of straw and hay
in a loose box in the stable dead drunk.”

“Make him come.”

After some delay the information was brought him,
that, when Mr. Stanlake after great efforts had been
reared upon his legs he had fallen over again.

“Put the horses to. I can drive as well as Stanlake.
I will drive home myself; and do you shove
that drunken boor head and crop into the carriage.”

The phaeton was brought to the door: the vicar
mounted the box, the drunken servant was tumbled
inside, the door shut on him, and off they started for
a long night drive with no moon in the sky, and
frosty stars looking down on the wintry earth.

Half-way between Bideford and Morwenstow, in
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
descending a hill the pole-strap broke; the carriage
ran forward on the horses’ heels; they plunged, and
the pole drove into the hedge; with a jerk one of the
carriage springs gave way.

Mr. Hawker, afraid to get off the box without some
one being at hand to hold the horses’ heads, shouted
lustily for help. No one came.

“Stanlake, wake up! Get out!”

A snore from inside was the only answer. Mr.
Hawker knocked the glasses with his whip handle,
and shouted yet louder: “You drunken scoundrel,
get out and hold the horses!”

“We won’t go home till morning, till daylight
doth appear,” chanted the tipsy man in bad tune from
within.

After some time a labourer, seeing from a distance
the stationary carriage lamps, and wondering what
they were, arrived on the scene. By his assistance
the carriage was brought sideways to the hill, the
horses were taken out, a piece of rope procured to
mend the harness and tie up the broken spring; and
Mr. Hawker, remounting the box, drove forward, and
reached Morwenstow vicarage about one o’clock at
night.

In the morning Stanlake appeared in the library,
very downcast.

“Go away,” said the vicar in a voice of thunder.
“I dismiss you forthwith. Here are your wages. I
will not even look at you. Let me never see your
face again. You brought me into a pretty predicament
last night.”

Two days after he met the man again. In the
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
meantime his wrath had abated, and he began to
think that he had acted harshly with his servant.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that
trespass against us,” ran in his head.

“Stanlake,” said he, “you played me a hateful
trick the other night. I hope you are sorry for it.”

“I’se very sorry, your honour, but you gave me
the whiskey.”

“You think you won’t do it again?”

“I’se very sure I won’t, if you give me no more.”

“Then, Stanlake, I will overlook it. You may
remain in my service.”

Not many weeks after, the vicar sent Stanlake to
Boscastle, and, thinking he would be cold, gave him
again a bottle of whisky. Of course, once more the
man got drunk. This time the vicar did not overlook
it; but which of the two was really to blame?

Mr. Robert Stephen Hawker was a man of the
most unbounded hospitality. Every one who visited
Morwenstow met with a warm welcome: everything
his larder and dairy contained was produced in the
most lavish profusion. The best that his house could
afford was freely given. On one occasion, when
about to be visited by a nephew and his wife, he sent
all the way to Tavistock, about thirty miles, for a leg
and shoulder of Dartmoor mutton. If he saw friends
coming along the loop drive which descended to his
vicarage, he would run to the door, with a sunny smile
of greeting, and both hands extended in welcome, and
draw them in to break his bread and partake of his
salt. Sometimes his larder was empty, he had fed
so many visitors; and he would say sorrowfully:
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
“There is nothing but ham and eggs: I give thee all,
I can no more.” And visitors were most numerous
in summer. In one of his letters he speaks of having
entertained 150 in a summer.

His drawing-room on a summer afternoon was
often so crowded with visitors from Bude, Clovelly,
Bideford, Stratton and elsewhere, come to tea, that
it was difficult to move in it.

“Look here, my dear,” he would say to a young
wife, “I will tell you how to make tea. Fill the pot
with leaves to the top, and pour the water into the
cracks.” His tea was always the best Lapsing
Souchong from Twining’s.

He was a wretched carver. He talked and
laughed, and hacked the meat at the same time,
cutting here, there and anywhere, in search of the
tenderest pieces for his guests.

“One day that we went over to call on him unexpectedly,”
says a friend, “he made us stay for lunch.
He was in the greatest excitement and delight at our
visit, and in the flurry decanted a bottle of brandy
and filled our wine-glasses with it, mistaking it for
sherry. The joint was a fore-quarter of lamb. It
puzzled him extremely. At last, losing all patience,
he grasped the leg-bone with one hand, the shoulder
with the fork driven up to the hilt through it, and
tore it by main force asunder.”

Another friend describes a “high tea” at his
house. A whole covey of partridges was brought
on table. He drove his fork into the breast of each,
then severed the legs by cutting through the back,
and so helped each person to the whole breast and
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
wings. The birds had not been cooked by an experienced
hand, and properly trussed. The whole covey
lay on their backs with their legs in the air, presenting
the drollest appearance when the cover—large enough
for a sirloin of beef—was removed from the dish.

“When you steal your own cream, my dear,” was
a saying of his to ladies, “don’t take just a spoonful
on a bit of bread, but clear the whole pan with a
great ladle and no bread.”

One story about a breakdown when driving has
been told: another incident of the same description
shall be given in his own words:—

.pm letter-start
Nov. 4, 1856. <i>My dear Sir</i>,—When I relate the history of
our recent transit through Poughill by night, I think you will
allow that I am not nervous beyond measure when I say that I
am obliged through fear to deny myself the pleasure of joining
your hospitable board on Thursday next. Before we had
crossed Summerleaze one lamp went out; another languished.
My clumsy servant John had broken both springs. A lantern,
which we borrowed at Lake Cottage of a woman called Barrett,
held aloft by our boy, just enabled us to creep along amid a
thorough flood of cold rain, until we arrived at Stowe. There
we succeeded in negotiating a loan of another piece of candle,
and moved on, a rare and rending headache meanwhile throbbing
under my hat. Half-way down Stowe hill, the drag-chain
broke suddenly, and but for extreme good behaviour on the part
of the horses—shall I add good driving on mine?—we must
have gone over in a heap, to the great delight of the Dissenters
in this district. We did at last arrive home, but it was in a
very disconsolate condition. Still, good came of our journey;
for Mrs. Hawker cannot deny that I drove in a masterly
manner, and therefore is bound to travel anywhere with me by
<i>day</i>. We mean, with your leave, to come down to you early
one day soon, and depart so as to be at home before dark.
Tell your son that on Saturday night last, at eight o’clock,
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
tidings came in that carriage-lamps flared along our in-road. I
found at the door “a deputation from the Parent Society,” the
Rev. L. H——. Three friends had previously suggested his
visit here, and all three had been snubbed. But he put into
my hand a note from Leopold Ackland, so there was no longer
any resistance. He had travelled far—Australia, Egypt, the
Crimea during the Anglican defeat. So his talk amused us.
With kindest regards to all at Flexbury, I remain, yours, my
dear sir, very faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.

<sc>T. Carnsew</sc>, Esq.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Mr. Hawker, as has been already intimated, was
rather peculiar in his dress. At first, soon after his
induction to Morwenstow, he wore his cassock; but
in time abandoned this inconvenient garb, in which
he found it impossible to scramble about his cliffs.
He then adopted a claret-coloured coat, with long
tails. He had the greatest aversion to anything
black: the only black things he would wear were his
boots. These claret-coloured coats would button over
the breast, but were generally worn open, displaying
beneath a knitted blue fisherman’s jersey. At his
side, just where the Lord’s side was pierced, a little
red cross was woven into the jersey. He wore
fishing-boots reaching above his knee.

The claret-coloured cassock coats, when worn out,
were given to his servant-maids, who wore them as
morning-dresses when going about their dirty work.

“See there! the parson is washing potatoes!” or,
“See there! the parson is feeding the pigs!” would
be exclaimed by villagers, as they saw his servant
girls engaged on their work, in their master’s coats.

At first he went about in a college cap; but this
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
speedily made way for a pink or plum-coloured beaver
hat without a brim, the colour of which rapidly
faded to a tint of pink, the blue having disappeared.
When he put on coat, jersey or hat he wore it till it
was worn out: he had no best suit.

Once he had to go to Hartland, to the funeral of
a relative. On the way he had an accident—his
carriage upset, and he was thrown out. When he
arrived at Hartland, his relations condoled with him
on his upset. “Do, Hawker, let me find you a new
hat: in your fall you have knocked the brim off
yours,” said one.

“My dear ——,” he answered, “priests of the
Holy Eastern Church wear no brims to their hats;
and I wear none, to testify the connection of the
Cornish Church with the East, before ever Augustine
set foot in Kent.” And he attended the funeral in
his brimless hat. He wore one of these peculiar
coloured hats, bleached almost white, at the funeral
of his first wife, in 1863, and could hardly be persuaded
to allow the narrowest possible band of black
crape to be pinned round it.

The pink hats were, however, abandoned, partly
because they would not keep their colour; and a
priest’s wide-awake, claret-coloured like the coat, was
adopted in its place.

“My coat,” said he, when asked by a lady why
he wore one of such a cut and colour, “my coat is
that of an Armenian archimandrite.” But this he
said only from his love of hoaxing persons who asked
him impertinent questions.

When Mr. Hawker went up to London to be
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
married the second time, he lost his hat, which was
carried away by the wind as he looked out of the
window of the train, to become, perhaps, an inmate
of a provincial museum as a curiosity. He arrived
hatless in town after dark. He tied a large crimson
silk handkerchief over his head, and thus attired
paced up and down the street for two hours before
his lodging, in great excitement at the thought of
the change in his prospects which would dawn with
the morrow. I must leave to the imagination of the
reader the perplexity of the policeman at the corner
over the extraordinary figure in claret-coloured clerical
coat, wading-boots up to his hips, blue knitted
jersey, and red handkerchief bound round his head.
His gloves were crimson. He wore these in church
as well as elsewhere.

In the dark chancel, lighted only dimly through
the stained east window, hidden behind a close-grated
screen, the vicar was invisible when performing the
service, till, having shouted “Thomas,” in a voice of
thunder, two blood-red hands were thrust through
the screen, with offertory bags, in which alms were
to be collected by the churchwarden who answered
the familiar call. Or, the first appearance of the
vicar took place after the Nicene Creed, when a
crimson hand was seen gliding up the banister of the
pulpit, to be followed by his body, painfully worming
its way through an aperture in the screen, measuring
sixteen inches only; “the camel getting at length
through the eye of the needle,” as Mr. Hawker called
the proceeding.

In church he wore a little black cap over his white
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
hair, rendered necessary by the cold and damp of the
decaying old church.

At his side he carried a bunch of seals and medals.
One of his seals bore the fish surrounded by a serpent
biting its tail, and the legend [Greek: i)chthy/s]. Another
bore the pentacle, with the name of Jehovah in
Hebrew characters in the centre. This was Solomon’s
seal. “With this seal,” he said, “I can command
the devils.”

His command of the devil was not always successful.
He built a barn on the most exposed and
elevated point of the glebe; and when a neighbour
expostulated with him, and assured him that the
wind would speedily wreck it, “No,” he answered:
“I have placed the sign of the cross on it, and so the
devil cannot touch it.”

A few weeks after, a gale from the south-west tore
the roof off.

“The devil,” was his explanation, “was so enraged
at seeing the sign of the cross on my barn, that he
rent it and wrecked it.”

A man whom he had saved from a wreck, in
gratitude sent him afterwards, from the diggings
in California, a nugget of gold he had found. This
Mr. Hawker had struck into a medal or seal, and
wore always at his side with the bunch.

Attached to the button-hole of his coat was invariably
a pencil suspended by a piece of string.

He was a well-built man, tall, broad, with a face
full of manly beauty, a nobly cut profile, dark, full
eyes, and long, snowy hair. His expression was
rapidly changing, like the sea as seen from his cliffs;
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
now flashing and rippling with smiles, and anon overcast
and sad, sometimes stormy.

Mr. Hawker, some short time after his induction
into Morwenstow, adopted an alb and cope which he
wore throughout his ministrations at matins, litany
and communion service. But he left off wearing the
cope about ten or twelve years ago, and the reason
he gave for doing so was his disapproval of the
extravagances of the Ritualist party. Till the year
before he died he had no personal knowledge of their
proceedings, and related as facts the most ridiculous
and preposterous fables concerning them which had
been told him, and which he sincerely believed in.

The ceremonial he employed in his church was
entirely of his own devising. When he baptised a
child he raised it in his arms, carried it up the church
in his waving purple cope, thundering forth, with his
rich, powerful voice, the words: “We receive this
child into the congregation of Christ’s flock,” etc.
His administration of this sacrament was most
solemn and impressive; and I know of parents who
have gone to Morwenstow for the purpose of having
their children baptised by him.

In celebrating marriage it was his wont to take
the ring and toss it in the air before restoring it to
the bridegroom. What was symbolised by this
proceeding I have been unable to ascertain, unless
it were to point out that marriage is always more
or less of a toss-up.

After abandoning the cope for the reasons stated,
his appearance in girdled alb was not a little peculiar.
The alb, to any one not accustomed to see it, has
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
much the look of a nightgown. Over his shoulders
he wore a stole of which he was very fond. It was
copied for him from one found at Durham, which
had been placed in the shrine of St. Cuthbert, on
the body. Mr. Hawker bore a special reverence for
the memory of St. Cuthbert, who, living on his islet
of Farne, the haunt of sea-mews, taming the wild
birds, praying, meditating amidst the roar of the
North Sea, he thought occupied a position not unlike
his own. The week before he died, Mr. Hawker sent
to Morwenstow for this stole, and was photographed
in it.

“We are much taken with the old church,” wrote
a well-known public man a few years ago to a friend,
“to say nothing of the vicar thereof, who reminds me
immensely of Cardinal Wiseman. He is a sight to
see, as well as a preacher to hear, as he stands in
his quaint garb and quaint pulpit, and looks as if
he belonged to the days of Morwenna Abbatissa
herself.”

He was usually followed to church by nine or ten
cats, which entered the chancel with him and careered
about it during service. Whilst saying prayers Mr.
Hawker would pat his cats, or scratch them under
their chins. Originally ten cats accompanied him to
church; but one, having caught, killed and eaten a
mouse on a Sunday, was excommunicated, and from
that day was not allowed again within the sanctuary.

A friend tells me that on attending Morwenstow
Church one Sunday morning, nothing amazed him
more than to see a little dog sitting upon the altar
step behind the celebrant, in the position which
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
is usually attributed to a deacon or a server. He
afterwards spoke to Mr. Hawker on the subject,
and asked him why he did not turn the dog out of
the chancel and church.

“Turn the dog out of the ark!” he exclaimed:
“all animals, clean and unclean, should find there a
refuge.”

His chancel, as has been already said, was strewn
with wormwood, sweet marjoram and wild thyme.

He had a garden which he called his church garden,
below his house, in a spot sheltered by dwarfed
trees. In this garden he grew such flowers as were
suitable for church decoration, and were named in
honour of the Virgin Mary or the saints, such as
columbine, lilies, Barnaby’s thistle, Timothy grass,
the cowslip (St. Peter’s flower), Lady’s smock, etc.

Mr. Hawker’s kindness to animals was a conspicuous
feature in his character. The birds of Morwenstow
became quite tame, and fluttered round him
for food. “Ubi aves,” he said, “ibi angeli.” To the
north side of the church, above the vicarage, is a
small grove of trees, oaks and sycamores. There were
nests in them of magpies: Mr. Hawker thought that
they were those of jackdaws, but these birds do not
build nests among branches. He was very anxious
to get rooks to inhabit this grove; to obtain them
he went to his chancel, and, kneeling before the
altar, besought God to give him a rookery where
he wanted. Having made his prayer, full of faith,
he had a ladder put to the trees, and he carefully
removed the nests to a chimney of his house which
was rarely used.
.bn 111.png
.pn +1

“Jackdaws,” said he, “I make you a promise: if
you will give up these trees to rooks, you shall have
the chimney of my blue room in <i>sæcula sæculorum</i>.”

The jackdaws took him at his word, and filled the
chimney with their piles of sticks which serve as
nests. Somehow rooks were persuaded to settle
among the tree-tops of his grove, and there the
colony subsists to the present day.

Some years ago, when Dr. Phillpotts was Bishop
of Exeter, a visit of the bishop to Morwenstow had
been planned and decided upon. Mrs. Hawker insisted
on having the blue room fitted up for his lordship.
A fire would have to be lighted in the grate:
the chimney would smoke unless cleared of nests.

Mr. Hawker stood by whilst Mrs. Hawker and the
maid prepared the blue room. He would not have
the jackdaws disturbed; he had given them his word
of honour. Mrs. Hawker argued that necessity knows
no law: the bishop must have a fire, and the jackdaws
must make way for the bishop. She prevailed.

“I wrung my hands, I protested, entreated and
foretold evil,” was the vicar’s account of the affair.

“Well, and did evil come of it?”

“Yes, the bishop never arrived, after all.”

Mr. Hawker was warmly attached to the Bishop of
Exeter, and was accustomed to send him some braces
of woodcocks every October.

Not far from the church and vicarage was the Well
of St. John, a spring of exquisitely clear water, which
he always employed for his font.

Sir J. Buller, afterwards Lord Churston, claimed
the well, and an expensive lawsuit was the result.
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
The vicar carried his right to the well, and Sir J.
Buller had to pay expenses. Mr. Hawker would tell
his guests that he was about to produce them a
bottle of the costliest liquor in the county of Cornwall,
and then give them water from the Well of St.
John. The right to this water had cost several
thousands of pounds.

A letter dated 7th Feb., 1852, to a young friend
going up to the university, refers to his cats and
dogs, and to his annual gift of woodcocks to the
bishop, and may therefore be quoted at the conclusion
of this chapter.

.pm letter-start
Our roof bends over us unchanged. Berg (his dog) is still
in our confidence, and well deserves it. The nine soft, furry
friends of ours are well, and Kit rules them with a steady claw.
Peggy is well and warm.... I never knew game so scarce
since I came to Morwenstow; except some woodcocks, which
I sent to the bishop as usual in October and November, we
have had literally none.

And now for one of those waste things, a word of advice.
You are in what is called by snobs a fast college. I earnestly
advise you to eschew fast men. I am now suffering from the
effects of silly and idle outlay in Oxford. I do hope that
nothing will induce you to accept that base credit which those
cormorants, the Oxford tradesmen, always try to force on
freshmen, in order to harass and rob them afterwards. No
fast undergraduate in all my remembrance ever settled down
into a respectable man. Ask God for strong angels, and He
will fulfil your prayer. Never forget Him, and He will never
neglect you.
.pm letter-end
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch05
CHAPTER V
.pm ch-hd-start
The Inhabitants of Morwenstow in 1834—Cruel Coppinger—Whips the
Parson of Kilkhampton—Gives Tom Tape a Ride—Tristam Pentire—Parminter
and his Dog Satan—The Gauger’s Pocket—Wrecking—The
Wrecker and the Ravens—The Loss of the <i>Margaret Quail</i>—The
Wreck of the <i>Ben Coolan</i>—“A Croon on Hennacliff”—Letters
concerning Wrecks—The Donkeys and the Copper Ore—The Ship
<i>Morwenna</i>—Flotsam and Jetsam—Wrecks on 14th Nov., 1875—Bodies
in Poundstock Church—The Loss of the <i>Caledonia</i>—The Wreck of
the <i>Phœnix</i> and of the <i>Alonzo</i>.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.4 0.7
<sc>When</sc> the Rev. R. S. Hawker came to Morwenstow
in 1834, he found that he had
much to contend with, not only in the
external condition of church and vicarage, but also
in that which is of greater importance.

A writer in the <i>John Bull</i> says: “He found a
manse in ruins, and partly used as a barn; a parish
peopled with wreckers, smugglers and Dissenting
Bryanites; and a venerable church, deserted and
ill-cared for, amidst a heap of weeds and nettles.
Desolate as was the situation of the grey old sanctuary
and tower, standing out upon the rugged incline that
shelves down a descent of 300 feet to the beach, it
was not more barren of external comfort than was
the internal state of those who had been confided to
his pastoral care.

“The farmers of the parish were simple-hearted
and respectable; but the denizens of the hamlet,
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
after receiving the wages of the harvest time, eked
out a precarious existence in the winter, and watched
eagerly and expectantly for the shipwrecks that were
certain to happen, and upon the plunder of which
they surely calculated for the scant provision of their
families. The wrecked goods supplied them with
the necessaries of life, and the rended planks of the
dismembered vessel contributed to the warmth of
the hovel hearthstone.

“When Mr. Hawker came to Morwenstow, ‘the
cruel and covetous natives of the strand, the wreckers
of the seas and rocks for flotsam and jetsam,’ held as
an axiom and an injunction to be strictly obeyed:—

.pm verse-start
Save a stranger from the sea,
And he’ll turn your enemy!
.pm verse-end

“The Morwenstow wreckers allowed a fainting
brother to perish in the sea before their eyes without
extending a hand of safety—nay, more, for the
egotistical canons of a shipwreck, superstitiously
obeyed, permitted and absolved the crime of murder
by ’shoving the drowning man into the sea,’ to be
swallowed by the waves. Cain! Cain! where is thy
brother? And the wrecker of Morwenstow answered
and pleaded in excuse, as in the case of undiluted
brandy after meals, ‘It is Cornish custom’. The
illicit spirit of Cornish custom was supplied by the
smuggler, and the gold of the wreck paid him for the
cursed abomination of drink.”

One of Mr. Hawker’s parishioners, Peter Barrow,[#*:pseudo#]
had been, for full forty years, a wrecker, but of a
much more harmless description: he had been a
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
watcher of the coast for such objects as the waves
might turn up to reward his patience. Another was
Tristam Pentire,[#*:pseudo#] a hero of contraband adventure,
and agent for sale of smuggled cargoes in bygone
times. With a merry twinkle of the eye, and in a
sharp and ringing tone, he loved to tell such tales of
wild adventure, and of “derring-do,” as would make
the foot of the exciseman falter, and his cheek turn
pale.

During the latter years of last century there lived
in Wellcombe, one of Mr. Hawker’s parishes, a man
whose name is still remembered with terror—Cruel
Coppinger. There are people still alive who remember
his wife.

Local recollections of the man have moulded
themselves into the rhyme:—

.pm verse-start
Will you hear of Cruel Coppinger?
  He came from a foreign land:
He was brought to us by the salt water,
  He was carried away by the wind!
.pm verse-end

His arrival on the north coast of Cornwall was
signalised by a terrific hurricane. The storm came
up Channel from the south-west. A strange vessel of
foreign rig went on the reefs of Harty Race, and was
broken to pieces by the waves. The only man who
came ashore was the skipper. A crowd was gathered
on the sand, on horseback and on foot, women as well
as men, drawn together by the tidings of a probable
wreck. Into their midst rushed the dripping stranger,
and bounded suddenly upon the crupper of a young
damsel who had ridden to the beach to see the sight.
He grasped her bridle, and, shouting in some foreign
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
tongue, urged the double-laden animal into full speed,
and the horse naturally took his homeward way.
The damsel was Miss Dinah Hamlyn. The stranger
descended at her father’s door, and lifted her off her
saddle. He then announced himself as a Dane,
named Coppinger. He took his place at the family
board, and there remained till he had secured the
affections and hand of Dinah. The father died, and
Coppinger at once succeeded to the management and
control of the house, which thenceforth became a
den and refuge of every lawless character along the
coast. All kinds of wild uproar and reckless revelry
appalled the neighbourhood day and night. It was
discovered that an organised band of smugglers,
wreckers and poachers made this house their rendezvous,
and that “Cruel Coppinger” was their
captain. In those days, and in that far-away region,
the peaceable inhabitants were unprotected. There
was not a single resident gentleman of property and
weight in the entire district. No revenue officer
durst exercise vigilance west of the Tamar; and, to
put an end to all such surveillance at once, the head
of a gauger was chopped off by one of Coppinger’s
gang, on the gunwale of a boat.

Strange vessels began to appear at regular intervals
on the coast, and signals were flashed from the
headlands to lead them into the safest creek or cove.
Amongst these vessels, one, a full-rigged schooner,
soon became ominously conspicuous. She was for
long the chief terror of the Cornish Channel. Her
name was <i>The Black Prince</i>. Once, with Coppinger
on board, she led a revenue-cutter into an intricate
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
channel near the Bull Rock, where, from knowledge
of the bearings, <i>The Black Prince</i> escaped
scathless, while the king’s vessel perished with all
on board. In those times, if any landsman became
obnoxious to Coppinger’s men, he was seized, and
carried on board <i>The Black Prince</i> and obliged to
save his life by enrolling himself in the crew. In
1835 an old man, of the age of ninety-seven, related
to Mr. Hawker that he had been so abducted, and
after two years’ service had been ransomed by his
friends with a large sum. “And all,” said the old
man very simply, “because I happened to see one man
kill another, and they thought I would mention it.”

Amid such practices, ill-gotten gold began to flow
and ebb in the hands of Coppinger. At one time
he had enough money to purchase a freehold farm
bordering on the sea. When the day of transfer
came he and one of his followers appeared before the
lawyer, and paid the money in dollars, ducats, doubloons
and pistols. The man of law demurred, but
Coppinger with an oath bade him take this or none.
The document bearing Coppinger’s name is still
extant. His signature is traced in stern, bold characters,
and under his autograph is the word “Thuro”
(thorough) also in his own handwriting.

Long impunity increased Coppinger’s daring.
There were certain bridle-roads along the fields over
which he exercised exclusive control. He issued
orders that no man was to pass over them by night,
and accordingly from that hour none ever did. They
were called “Coppinger’s Tracks.” They all converged
at a headland which had the name of Steeple
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
Brink. Here the cliff sheered off, and stood 300 feet
of perpendicular height, a precipice of smooth rock
towards the beach, with an overhanging face 100 feet
down from the brow. Under this was a cave, only
reached by a cable ladder lowered from above, and
made fast below on a projecting crag. It received
the name of “Coppinger’s Cave.” Here sheep were
tethered to the rock, and fed on stolen hay and corn
till slaughtered; kegs of brandy and hollands were
piled around; chests of tea; and iron-bound sea-chests
contained the chattels and revenues of the
Coppinger royalty of the sea.

The terror linked with Coppinger’s name throughout
the coast was so extreme that the people themselves,
wild and lawless as they were, submitted to
his sway as though he had been lord of the soil and
they his vassals. Such a household as Coppinger’s
was, of course, far from happy or calm. Although
when his father-in-law died he had insensibly acquired
possession of the stock and farm, there remained in
the hands of the widow a considerable amount of
money as her dower. This he obtained from the
helpless woman by instalments, and by this cruel
means. He fastened his wife to the pillar of her oak
bedstead, and called her mother into the room. He
then assured her he would flog Dinah with a cat-o’-nine-tails
till her mother had transferred to him the
amount of her reserved property that he demanded.
This act of brutal cruelty he repeated till he had
utterly exhausted the widow’s store.

The Kilkhampton parson hated rook-pie. Coppinger
knew it.
.bn 119.png
.pn +1

He invited him to dine with him one day. A large
rook-pie was served at one end of the table, and roast
rooks at the other; and the parson, who was very
hungry, was forced to eat of them. When he departed
he invited Coppinger to dine with him on the
following Thursday. The smuggler arrived, and was
regaled on pie, whether rabbit or hare he could not
decide. When he came home he found a cat’s skin
and head stuffed into his coat-pocket, and thereby
discovered what he had been eating.

Coppinger was furious. He had a favourite mare,
so indomitable that none but he could venture
on her back, and so fleet and strong that he owed
his escape from more than one menacing peril to
her speed and endurance.

Shortly after the dinner of cat-pie, the rector of
Kilkhampton was walking homeward along a lane
when he heard behind him the clattering of horse-hoofs;
and Cruel Coppinger bore down on him, seated
on his mare, whirling his double-thonged whip round
his head. He lashed the back of the unfortunate
parson, pursued him, struck and struck again till he
had striped him like a zebra, and then galloped off
with the parting scoff: “There, parson, I have paid
my tithe in full; never mind the receipt.”

On the selfsame animal Coppinger is related to have
performed another freak. He had passed a festive
evening at a farmhouse, and was about to take his
departure, when he spied in the corner of the hearth
a little old tailor who went from house to house in
exercise of his calling. His name was uncle Tom
Tape.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1

“Ha! Uncle Tom,” cried Coppinger, “we both
travel the same road, and I don’t mind giving you a
hoist behind me on the mare.”

The old man cowered in the settle. He would not
encumber the gentleman; was unaccustomed to ride
such a spirited horse. But Coppinger was not to be
put off. The trembling old man was mounted on the
crupper of the capering mare. Off she bounded;
and Uncle Tom, with his arms cast with the grip of
terror round his bulky companion, held on like grim
death. Unbuckling his belt, Coppinger passed it
round Uncle Tom’s thin body, and buckled it on his
own front. When he had firmly secured his victim,
he loosened his reins, and urged the mare into a
furious gallop. Onwards they rushed, till they fled
past the tailor’s own door, where his startled wife,
who was on the watch, afterwards declared “she
caught sight of her husband clinging to a rainbow”.

At last the mare relaxed her pace; and then Coppinger,
looking over his shoulder said: “I have been
under long promise to the Devil that I would bring
him a tailor to make and mend for him; and I mean
to keep my word to-night.”

The agony of terror produced by this announcement
caused such struggles that the belt gave way,
and the tailor fell among the gorse at the roadside.
There he was found next morning in a semi-delirious
state, muttering: “No, no; I never will. Let him
mend his breeches with his own drag-chain. I will
never thread a needle for Coppinger or his friend.”

One boy was the only fruit of poor Dinah’s marriage
with the Stranger. He was deaf and dumb, and
mischievous and ungovernable from his youth. His
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
cruelty to animals, birds and to other children was
intense. Any living thing that he could torture
yielded him delight. With savage gestures and jabbering
moans he haunted the rocks along the shore,
and seemed like some uncouth creature cast up by
the sea. When he was only six years old, he was
found one day on the brink of a cliff, bounding with
joy, and pointing downwards to the beach with convulsions
of delight. There, mangled by the fall, and
dead, they found the body of a neighbour’s child of his
own age; and it was believed that little Coppinger
had wilfully cast him over. It was a saying in the
district that, as a judgment on his father’s cruelty,
his child had been born without a human soul.

But the end arrived. Money became scarce, and
more than one armed king’s cutter was seen day and
night hovering off the land. So he “who came with
the water went with the wind.” His disappearance,
like his arrival, was commemorated by a storm.

A wrecker who had gone to watch the shore saw,
as the sun went down, a full-rigged vessel standing
off and on. Coppinger came to the beach, put off in
a boat to the vessel and jumped on board. She
spread canvas, stood off shore, and, with Coppinger
in her, was seen no more. That night was one of
storm. Whether the vessel rode it out or was lost
none knew.[#]
.pm fn-start
<i>Footprints of Former Men.</i> I have followed Mr. Hawker’s
tale closely, except in one point, where I have told the story as
related to me in the neighbourhood differently from the way in
which he has told it. Coppinger was really an Irishman, with a
wife at Trewhiddle, Cornwall, by whom he had a daughter, who
married a son of Lord Clinton. He gave as her portion £40,000.
Trewhiddle is near St. Austell.
.pm fn-end
.bn 122.png
.pn +1

Tristam Pentire[#*:pseudo#] has already been mentioned.
He was the last of the smugglers, and became Mr.
Hawker’s servant-of-all-work. The vicar had many
good stories to relate of his man.

“There have been divers parsons in this parish
since I have been here,” said Tristam, “some strict,
and some not; and there was one that had very mean
notions about running goods, and said it was wrong
to do so. But even he never took no part with
the gauger—never. And besides,” said old Trim,
“wasn’t the exciseman always ready to put <i>us</i> to
death if he could?”

One day he asked Mr. Hawker: “Can you tell me
the reason, sir, that no grass will ever grow on the
grave of a man that’s hanged unjustly?”

“No, indeed, Tristam: I never heard of the fact
before.”

“That grave on the right hand of the path as you
go down to the porch has not one blade of grass on
it, and never will. That’s Will Pooly’s grave, that
was hanged unjustly.”

“Indeed! How came that about?”

“Why, you see, they got poor Will down to Bodmin,
all among strangers; and there was bribery and
false swearing; and so they agreed together, and
hanged poor Will. But his friends begged the body,
and brought the corpse home here to his own parish;
and they turfed the grave, and they sowed the grass
twenty times over; but ’twas all of no use, nothing
would grow—he was hanged unjustly.”

“Well, but, Tristam, what was he accused of?
What had Will Pooly done?”
.bn 123.png
.pn +1

“Done, your honour? Done? Oh! nothing at all,
except killed an exciseman.”

Among the “king’s men” whose achievements
haunted the old man’s memory with a sense of mingled
terror and dislike, a certain Parminter and his
dog occupied a principal place.

“Sir,” said old Tristam one day to the vicar, “that
villain Parminter and his dog murdered with their
shetting-irons no less than seven of our people at
divers times, and they peacefully at work at their
calling all the while.”

Parminter was a bold officer, whom no threats could
deter, and no money bribe. He always went armed
to the teeth, and was followed by a large fierce dog,
which he called Satan. This animal he had trained
to carry in his mouth a carbine or a loaded club,
which, at a signal from his master, Satan brought to
the rescue.

“Ay, they was audacious rascals—that Parminter
and his dog; but he went rather too far one day, as
I reckon,” said old Tristam, as he leaned on his spade
talking to the vicar.

“Did he, Trim? in what way?”

“Why, your honour, the case was this. Our people
had a landing down at Melhuach, in Johnnie Mathey’s
hole; and Parminter and his dog found it out. So
they got into the cave at ebb tide, and laid in wait;
and when the first boat-load came ashore, just as the
keel took the ground, down storms Parminter, shouting
for Satan to follow. But the dog knew better,
and held back, they said, for the first time in all his
life: so in leaps Parminter smack into the boat,
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
alone, with his cutlass drawn, but”—with a kind of
inward ecstasy—“he didn’t do much harm to the
boat’s crew.”

“Why not?”

“Because, your honour, they chopped off his head
on the gunwale.”

Near Tonacombe Cross is a stone called the Witan-stone.
To that Tristam one day guided his master,
the vicar.

“And now, your honour,” he said, “let me show
you the wonderfullest thing in all the place, and that
is the Gauger’s Pocket.” He then showed him, at
the back of the Witan-rock, a dry secret hole, about
an arm’s-length deep, closed by a moss-grown stone.
“There, your honour,” said he, with a joyous twinkle
in his eye, “there have I dropped a little bag of gold,
many and many a time, when our people wanted to
have the shore quiet, and to keep the exciseman out
of the way of trouble; and then he would go, if he
were a reasonable officer; and the byword used to
be, when ’twas all right, one of us would meet him,
and say: ’sir, your pocket is unbuttoned’; and he
would smile, and answer: ‘Ay, ay! but never mind,
my man, my money’s safe enough.’ And thereby we
knew that he was a just man, and satisfied, and that
the boats would take the roller in peace; and that
was the very way it came to pass that this crack in
the stone was called evermore the Gauger’s Pocket.”

In former times, when a ship was being driven on
the rocks on Sunday, whilst divine service was going
on, news was sent to the parson, who announced
the fact from the pulpit, or reading-desk, whereupon
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
ensued a rapid clearance of the church. The story
is told of a parson at Poughill, near Morwenstow,
who, on hearing the news, proceeded down the nave
in his surplice as far as the font; and the people,
supposing there was to be a christening, did not stir.
But when he was near the door he shouted: “My
Christian brethren, there’s a ship wrecked in the
cove: let us all start fair!” and, flinging off his surplice,
led the way to the scene of spoliation.

“I do not see why it is,” said a Cornish clerk one
day, “why there be prayers in the Buke o’ Common
Prayer for rain and for fine weather, and thanksgivings
for them and for peace, and there’s no prayer
for wrecks, nor thanksgiving for a really gude one
when it is come.”

Mr. Hawker relates a good story in his <i>Footprints</i>,
which was told him by an old man in his
parish named Tony Cleverdon.

“There was once a noted old wrecker, named
Kinsman: he lived in my father’s time; and when
no wreck was onward he would get his wages by
raising stone in a quarry by the seashore. Well, he
was to work one day over yonder, half-way down the
Tower-cliff, when all at once he saw two old ravens
flying round and round very near his head. They
dropped down into the quarry two pieces of wreck-candle
just at the old man’s feet.” (Very often
wreckers pick up Neapolitan wax candles from vessels
in the Mediterranean trade that have been lost in
the Channel.) “So when Kinsman saw the candles,
he thought in his mind, ‘There is surely wreck
coming in upon the beach’; so he packed his tools
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
together, and left them just where he stood, and
went his way wrecking. He could find no jetsam,
however, though he searched far and wide. Next day
he went back to quarry to his work. And he used
to say it was as true as a proverb—there the tools
were all buried deep out of sight, for the crag had
given way; and if he had tarried an hour longer he
must have been crushed to death. So you see, sir,
what knowledge those ravens must have had; how
well they knew the old man, and how dearly fond he
was of wreck; how crafty they were to hit upon
the only plan that would ever have slocked him
away.”

Wrecks are terribly frequent on this coast. Not
a winter passes without several. There are men
living who can remember eighty.

If wrecking is no longer practised, the wrecking
spirit can hardly be said to be extinct, as the following
facts will testify:—

In 1845 a ship came ashore in Melhuach Bay,
between Boscastle and Bude. The surge burst
against the cliffs, and it was impossible to launch
a lifeboat; but a rocket was fired over the vessel, and
so successfully that the hawser was secured to the
ship. Every life would, in all probability, have been
saved, had not some wretches cut through the rope,
more greedy for prey than careful to save life. Of all
the crew the only person saved was the captain. He
confirmed the opinion of the coast-guard, that, but
for the cutting through of the hawser, every one on
board would have been rescued.

In 1864 a large ship was seen in distress off the
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
coast. The Rev. A. Thynne, rector of Kilkhampton,
at once drove to Morwenstow. The vessel was riding
at anchor a mile off shore, west of Hartland Race.
He found Mr. Hawker in the greatest excitement,
pacing his room, and shouting for some things he
wanted to put in his greatcoat-pockets, and irritably
impatient because his carriage was not round. With
him was the Rev. W. Valentine, rector of Whixley
in Yorkshire, then resident at Chapel, in the parish
of Morwenstow.

“What are you going to do?” asked the rector of
Kilkhampton: “I intend to drive at once to Bude
for the lifeboat.”

“No good!” thundered the vicar, “no good comes
out of the West. You must go East. I shall go to
Clovelly, and then, if that fails, to Appledore. I
shall not stop till I have got a lifeboat to take those
poor fellows off the wreck.”

“Then,” said the rector of Kilkhampton, “I shall
go to Bude, and see to the lifeboat there being brought
out.”

“Do as you like; but mark my words, no good
comes of turning to the West. Why,” said he, “in
the primitive Church they turned to the West to
renounce the Devil.”

His carriage came to the door, and he drove off
with Mr. Valentine, as fast as his horses could spin
him along the hilly, wretched roads.

Before he reached Clovelly, a boat had put off
with the mate from the ship, which was the <i>Margaret
Quail</i>, laden with salt. The captain would not
leave the vessel; for, till deserted by him, no salvage
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
could be claimed. The mate was picked up on the
way, and the three reached Clovelly.

Down the street proceeded the following procession—the
street of Clovelly being a flight of steps:—

<i>First</i>, the vicar of Morwenstow in a claret-coloured
coat, with long tails flying in the gale, blue knitted
jersey, and pilot-boots, his long silver locks fluttering
about his head. He was appealing to the fishermen
and sailors of Clovelly to put out in their lifeboat,
to rescue the crew of the <i>Margaret Quail</i>. The men
stood sulky, lounging about with folded arms, or
hands in their pockets, and sou’-westers slouched
over their brows. The women were screaming at
the tops of their voices, that they would not have
their husbands and sons and sweethearts enticed
away to risk their lives to save wrecked men. Above
the clamour of their shrill tongues, and the sough of
the wind, rose the roar of the vicar’s voice: he was
convulsed with indignation, and poured forth the most
sacred appeals to their compassion for drowning sailors.

<i>Second</i> in the procession moved the Rev. W.
Valentine, with purse full of gold in his hand, offering
any amount of money to the Clovelly men, if they
would only go forth in the lifeboat to the wreck.

<i>Third</i> came the mate of the <i>Margaret Quail</i>,
restrained by no consideration of cloth, swearing and
damning right and left, in a towering rage at the
cowardice of the Clovelly men.

<i>Fourth</i> came John, the servant of Mr. Hawker,
with bottles of whisky under his arm, another inducement
to the men to relent, and be merciful to their
imperilled brethren.
.bn 129.png
.pn +1

The first appeal was to their love of heaven, and
to their humanity; the second was to their pockets,
their love of gold; the third to their terrors, their
fear of Satan, to whom they were consigned; and
the fourth to their stomachs, their love of grog.

But all appeals were in vain. Then Mr. Hawker
returned to his carriage and drove away, farther east,
to Appledore, where he secured the lifeboat. It was
mounted on a waggon. Ten horses were harnessed
to it; and, as fast as possible, it was conveyed to the
scene of distress.

But, in the meanwhile, the captain of the <i>Margaret
Quail</i>, despairing of help, and thinking that his vessel
would break up under him, came off in his boat,
with the rest of the crew, trusting rather to a rotten
boat, patched with canvas which they had tarred
over, than to the tender mercies of the covetous
Clovellites, in whose veins ran the too recent blood
of wreckers. The only living being left on board
was a poor dog.

No sooner was the captain seen to leave the ship,
than the Clovelly men lost their repugnance to go
to sea. They manned boats at once, gained the
<i>Margaret Quail</i>, and claimed £3000 for salvage.

There was an action in court, as the owners refused
to pay such a sum; and it was lost by the
Clovelly men, who, however, got an award of £1200.
The case turned somewhat on the presence of the
dog on the wreck; and it was argued that the vessel
was not deserted, because a dog had been left on
board, to keep guard for its masters. The owner of
the cargo failed; and the amount actually paid to
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
the salvors was £600 to two steam-tugs (£300 each),
and £300 to the Clovelly skiff and sixteen men. The
ship and cargo, minus masts, rigging, cables and
anchors, were valued at £5000.

Mr. Hawker went round the country indignantly
denouncing the boatmen of Clovelly, and with justice.
It roused all the righteous wrath in his breast. And,
as may well be believed, no love was borne him by
the inhabitants of that little fishing village. They
would probably have made a wreck of him, had he
ventured among them.

Another incident, at Bude, called forth a second
burst of indignation, but this time not so justly.

A fine vessel, the <i>Ben Coolan</i>, laden with Government
stores for India, ran ashore on the sand, outside
Bude Haven. The lifeboat was got out; but the
sea was terrible, and there was no practised crew
to man her. Crowds were on the pier, hooting the
boatmen, and calling them cowards, because they
would not put to sea, and save those on the vessel;
but an old Oxford eight man, who was present,
assures me that the crew were not up to facing such
a sea: they were gardeners, land-labourers, canal-men,
not one among them who, when he rowed, did
not look over his shoulder to see where he was going.
The crew shirked putting out in the tremendous sea
that was bowling in; and the vessel broke up under
the eyes of those who stood on the pier and cliffs.
The first rocket that was fired fell short. The
second went beyond the bows. The third went over
the ship. The mate was seen to run forward to
catch the rope, when a wave burst against the side,
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
and spun him up in the foam, and he was seen no
more. The ship turned broadside to the waves, which
tore her to pieces with great rapidity. Only a few of
the crew were saved. The captain was drowned.

Mr. Hawker wrote shortly afterwards:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
A CROON ON HENNACLIFF.
.sp 1
Thus said the rushing raven
  Unto his hungry mate:
“Ho, gossip! for Bude Haven!
  There be corpses six or eight.
Cawk, cawk! the crew and skipper
  Are wallowing in the sea,
So there’s a savoury supper
  For my old dame and me!”

“Cawk! gaffer! thou art dreaming:
  The shore hath wreckers bold,
Would rend the yelling seamen
  From the clutching billows’ hold!
Cawk, cawk! they’d bound for booty
  Into the dragon’s den,
And shout, ‘For death or duty!’
  If the prey were drowning men.”

Loud laughed the listening surges
  At the guess our grandam gave:
You might call them Boanerges
  From the thunder of their wave!
And mockery followed after
  The sea-bird’s jeering brood,
That filled the skies with laughter
  From Lundy Light to Bude.

“Cawk, cawk!” then said the raven:
  “I am fourscore years and ten,
Yet never in Bude Haven
  Did I croak for rescued men!
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
They will save the captain’s girdle,
  And shirt,[#] if shirt there be,
But leave their blood to curdle
  For my old dame and me.”

So said the rushing raven
  Unto his hungry mate:
“Ho, gossip! for Bude Haven!
  There be corpses six or eight.
Cawk, cawk! the crew and skipper
  Are wallowing in the sea:
Oh, what a dainty supper
  For my old dame and me!”
.pm verse-end
.pm fn-start
A fact: the shirt was secured.
.pm fn-end

A gentleman who was a witness of this wreck tells
me: “We saw the carpenter swimming ashore. He
was a magnificent man, largely built, with sinews and
muscles of great strength. He swam boldly and
desperately, but badly, as he kept his breast above
the water, so that he must have been much beaten
and bruised by the waves. We saw how his strength
gradually gave way, and then he seemed to rally, and
make another despairing effort. We succeeded in
getting hold of him at last, and brought him ashore.
Unfortunately there was no doctor by, or any one
who was experienced in dealing with cases of drowning.
We did as best we knew, following the old
usage of throwing him across a barrel. <i>Now</i> I know
that it was the worst treatment possible. Had a
medical man been at hand, it is my conviction that
the poor fellow would have been saved. His blood
was not curdled when we got him ashore, and I saw
it settle into his breast afterwards. It is an unpleasant
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
thought, that a life was sacrificed for want
of knowledge.”

Those of the crew who were saved proved to be a
sad set of fellows. They got so drunk, that they
could not attend the burial of their comrades.

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Sept. 18, 1869. <i>My dear Mr. Martyn</i>,—I
will not say, forgive me for my silence. You must do that; but
how can I state my miseries? First of all, for a fortnight I
have been a cripple from sciatica, only able to creep bent double
from room to room.[#] On Sunday night a hurricane smote my
house at midnight, burst in the whole of our bedroom-window
at a blow, and drove us out of bed to dress and go down. Two
lights of the drawing-room window were also blown in, one
broken to smash. No man or boy in the house. Well, we had
a bed made up in the servants’ room till the morning. At
dawn tidings came that a large vessel was ashore in Vicarage
Bay, just under the hut. I was put into the gig, and carried out.
Found the crew in death-horrors. Rocket apparatus arrived,
and fifteen men were dragged ashore alive. The other seven
(blacks) were drowned among my rocks. Guess my state. The
whole glebe alive with people. Seven corpses came ashore for
burial one by one. Graves already dug, and shrouds prepared;
but more yet. The cargo, coals, sixteen hundred tons, vessel
nineteen hundred tons, largest ever seen here. Broken up to-night.
My path down is now made for donkeys. What can be
saved is to be brought up and sold, as well as the broken ship.
Cannot you get help for one Sunday, and come over? It would
be the act of an angel to come to my rescue. You have your
house, and you could do much that I ought to do and cannot.
Come, I entreat you. God bless you, and help me; for I am
indeed in much anguish, and my poor Pauline worn out. Love
to all.
.ti 15
Yours faithfully,

R. S. H.
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
The handwriting of this letter is very shaky, and different from the
usual bold writing of the vicar.
.pm fn-end
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
.sp 1
.fs 85%
.in 4
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Oct. 9, 1869. <i>My dear Mr. Martyn</i>,—I have
devoted to you my first interval of freedom from pains and
crushing worry. Let no man hereafter ever accuse me of
shrinking from duty. I was assisted up to the churchyard by
Cann to bury the last sailor, in such an anguish from sciatic
pains, that I had faintness on me all the time; and on returning
from the grave my leg gave way under me, and I fell. However,
I have done it so far single-handed, and I am thankful....
.ti 15
Yours faithfully,
.ti 20
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.in 0
.fs 100%
.sp 1
Not long after a Spanish vessel came ashore a
little lower down the coast. There were on her a
number of Lascars. When the coast-guard officer
went on board, the Lascars, supposing him to be a
wrecker, drew their knives on him. He had the
presence of mind to show them his buttons with the
crown stamped on them, and so to satisfy them that
he was a government officer. The crew were much
bruised and injured. They were taken into Stowe
and other farmhouses in the neighbourhood, and
kindly nursed till well. The captain was a gallant
little Spanish don.

The rector of Kilkhampton, who diligently visited
the sailors, urged on the captain, when all were well,
the advisability of the crew coming to church to
return thanks for their rescue. He hesitated, saying
he was a Roman Catholic: but the rector urged that
all worshipped the same God, and had the same
Saviour; and, after having revolved the matter in
his own mind, he agreed.

Accordingly the whole crew with the captain came
to Kilkhampton Church, a beautiful restored building,
filled with old carved seats, rich modern stained
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
glass, and where the service is choral, and rendered
with great beauty and reverence.

The Spaniards and Lascars behaved with the utmost
devotion and recollection. After service they
adjourned to Penstowe, where they were hospitably
entertained with a dinner. The captain and the mate
dined with the family, the sailors in the hall. The
captain took in the lady of the house. On the other
side of him at table, sat one of the farmers who had
received the shipwrecked mariners into his house.
The Spaniard helped the lady to wine, half-filling her
glass; but was nudged by the farmer, who bade him
give her a brimmer. The little captain turned round,
and looked him in the face with an astonished stare,
which said plainly enough: “Do you, a Cornish
clown, think to teach manners to a Spanish don?”
The burly Cornish farmer withered at the glance.

In 1853 a vessel laden with copper ore was
wrecked in the bay below Morwenstow Church. The
ore was recovered, and carried up the cliff on the
backs of donkeys; but it was a tedious process, and
occupied two or three months. Mr. Hawker was
touched with the sufferings of the poor brutes, zigzagging
up a precipice, heavily laden with ore; and,
during all the time, had water drawn for them, and
a feed of corn apiece, to recruit their exhausted
strength as they reached the top of the cliff. His
compassion for the donkeys made a profound impression
on the people, and is one of their favourite stories
about him when they want to tell of the goodness of
his kind heart.

During these two or three months, the agent for
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
the firm which owned the vessel lived in the vicarage
and was entertained royally. When everything had
been recovered, and he was about to depart, he
thanked the vicar for his great kindness, and begged
to know, on the part of the firm, if there was anything
he could do, or give him, which would be acceptable
as some recognition for his kindness.

“No,” answered the vicar; “nothing. If paid by
you, God will not repay me.”

The agent again, and in more forcible terms,
assured him that the firm would not be happy unless
they could make him some acknowledgment for his
services and hospitality, out of the common way.

“Then I will ask one thing,” he said; “give the
captain another ship.”

The agent hesitated, and then said that what he
asked was an impossibility. The firm had no other
ships which were not then provided with captains.
They could not, in justice, displace one of them, to
instal in his room the captain of the wrecked ship.

“Never mind,” said Mr. Hawker; “this is the
only thing I have asked of you, and this is refused
me.”

A few days after, the agent came to him to inform
him that the firm purposed laying the keel of a new
vessel, and that the captain for whom he pleaded
should be appointed to her.

The ship was built, and was baptised <i>Morwenna</i>.
She now sails to and fro along this coast, and, whenever
she passes Morwenstow, runs up a flag, as a
mark of deference to the spot whence she derives
her name.
.bn 137.png
.pn +1

The flotsam and jetsam of a wreck are the property
of the Crown. The coast-guard are on the <i>qui-vive</i>
after a storm, and there is no chance now for village
wreckers. They may carry off small articles, which
they can put in their pockets; but so many have
been had up of late years before the magistrates, and
fined, that the officers of government have it nearly
all to themselves. When, however, a keg of brandy
is washed ashore, the villagers go down to the beach
with bottles, break in the head of the cask, and fill
their bottles. Should a coast-guard officer appear,
the keg is kicked over, and they make off with their
liquor. The bottles are sometimes kept in a cave, or
hidden in the sand, and removed at night. The
coast-guardsmen may suspect that the head of the
cask was stove in purposely, but cannot prove it.
When the shore is strewn with articles, an auction
is held on the spot. The farmers are the principal
buyers, and they get the goods very cheap. They
have their donkeys at hand, to remove up the cliffs
what they have purchased. The expense of transport
prevents others at a distance from entering into competition
with them.

After all has been sold, portions of the beach are
let by auction for a week or fortnight; and those
who take the beach are entitled to claim, as their
own, whatever is thrown up by the sea during their
tenure. A wreck does not come ashore at once, but
by instalments; nor always at one place, but all
along the coast.

Should there not be sufficient articles found by the
coast-guard to make it worth their while to call in an
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
auctioneer, they hold an auction of their own; but,
not being licensed, they cannot run the price of the
articles <i>up</i>, they therefore run them <i>down</i>. For
instance, a piece of wood comes ashore, worth, may
be, half a crown. The coast-guard offers it for ten
shillings; and, if no one will give that for it, it is
offered for nine, then eight, and so on, after the
manner of a cheap-jack.

I had got as far as this in my memoir on Saturday
night, 13th Nov., 1875. On the following morning I
went to Morwenstow, to take duty in the church.
The wind was blowing a hurricane from the south-west.
I had to hold on to the grave-stones, to drag
myself through the churchyard in the teeth of the
storm, to the church porch.

There were few present that morning. No woman
could have faced the wind. The roar of the ocean,
the howling of the blast, the clatter of the glass in
the windows, united, formed such a volume of sound
that I had to shout my loudest to be heard when
reading the service.

When morning prayer was over, I went into the
porch. A few men were there, holding their hats
on their heads, and preparing for a battle with the
wind.

“Not many at church this morning,” I said. “No,
your honour,” was the answer; “the wind would blow
the women away; and the men are most of ’em on
the cliffs, looking out if there be wrecks.”

Two vessels were caught sight of between the
scuds of rain, now on the top of a billow, then lost in
the trough of the waves.
.bn 139.png
.pn +1

They had been driven within the fatal line between
Hartland Head and Padstowe Point.

“Is there no chance for them?”

“None at all.”

That evening we sang in church the hymn for
those at sea, in “Ancient and Modern.” Whilst it
was being sung, one vessel foundered; but the crew,
six Frenchmen, came ashore in a boat. An hour or
two earlier the other went down, with all hands on
board.

On Monday and Tuesday bits of the wreck came
up in the coves, with <i>Wilhelmina</i> on them, but no
bodies.

After a storm the corpses are fearfully mangled
on the sharp rocks, and are cut to pieces by the slate
as by knives, and bits of flesh come ashore. These
are locally called “gobbets”; and Mr. Hawker, after
a wreck, used to send a man with a basket along the
beaches of the coves in his parish, collecting these
“gobbets,” which he interred in his churchyard, on
top of the cliffs.

In 1845, after a wreck, nine corpses were taken
into Poundstock Church. The incumbent was wont
to have daily service. The nine corpses lay along in
the aisle that morning. It was the twenty-second
day of the month, and he read the Psalm cvii.:—
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their
business in great waters; these men see the works of the Lord,
and His wonders in the deep. For at His word the stormy wind
ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They are carried
up to the heaven, and down again to the deep; their soul
melteth away because of the trouble. They reel to and fro,
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end. So
when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He delivereth
them out of their distress. For He maketh the storm to cease,
so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad,
because they are at rest; and so He bringeth them unto the
haven where they would be.
.pm letter-end

This psalm coming in its proper order seemed
strangely appropriate, read with those dead mariners
for a congregation.

The narrative of the wreck of the <i>Caledonia</i> in
1843 must not be told by any other than Mr.
Hawker himself. The following is extracted from
his “Remembrances of a Cornish Vicar,”[#] slightly
shortened.
.pm fn-start
<i>Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall</i>, pp. 182-221.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
At daybreak of an autumn day I was aroused by a knock
at my bedroom door: it was followed by the agitated voice of a
boy, a member of my household: “Oh, sir, there are dead men
on Vicarage Rocks!”

In a moment I was up, and in my cassock and slippers
rushed out. There stood my lad, weeping bitterly, and holding
out to me in his trembling hands a tortoise alive. I found
afterwards that he had grasped it on the beach, and brought it
in his hand as a strange and marvellous arrival from the waves,
but in utter ignorance of what it might be. I ran across my
glebe, a quarter of a mile, to the cliffs, and down a frightful
descent of three hundred feet to the beach. It was indeed a
scene to be looked on only once in a human life. On a ridge
of rock, just left bare by the falling tide, stood a man, my own
servant: he had come out to see my flock of ewes, and had
found the awful wreck. There he stood, with two dead sailors
at his feet, whom he had just drawn out of the water, stiff and
stark. The bay was tossing and seething with a tangled mass
of rigging and broken fragments of a ship; the billows rolled
up yellow with corn, for the cargo of the vessel had been
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
foreign wheat; and ever and anon there came up out of the
water, as though stretched out with life, a human hand and
arm. It was the corpse of another sailor drifting out to sea.
“Is there no one alive?” was my first question to my man. “I
think there is, sir,” he said, “for just now I thought I heard a
cry.” I made haste in the direction he pointed out; and on
turning a rock, just where a brook of fresh water fell to the
sea, there lay the body of a man in a seaman’s garb. He had
reached the water faint with thirst, but was too much exhausted
to swallow or drink. He opened his eyes at our voices; and, as
he saw me leaning over him in my cassock, he sobbed with a
piteous cry: “Oh, mon père, mon père!” Gradually he revived;
and when he had fully come to himself with the help of cordials
and food, we gathered from him the mournful tale of his vessel
and her wreck. He was a Jersey man by birth, and had been
shipped at Malta, on the homeward voyage of the vessel from
the port of Odessa with corn.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Mr. Hawker wrote this account for a periodical,
without giving the name of the place, or signing the
article. This explains a few trifling deviations from
fact. He goes on to relate how he took Le Daine
into his house. This was not strictly true. Le
Daine was found by another gentleman, and taken by
him into his father’s house in Morwenstow parish,
where he was carefully and kindly nursed till his recovery.
Mr. Hawker continues his narrative thus:—
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
I returned to the scene of death and danger, where my
man awaited me. He had found, in addition to the two corpses,
another dead body, jammed under a rock. By this time a
crowd of people had arrived from the land, and at my request
they began to search anxiously for the dead. It was indeed a
terrible scene. The vessel, a brig of five hundred tons, had struck,
as we afterwards found, at three o’clock that morning; and, by
the time the wreck was discovered, she had been shattered
into broken pieces by the fury of the sea. The rocks and water
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
bristled with fragments of mast and spar and rent timbers;
the cordage lay about in tangled masses. The rollers tumbled
in volumes of corn, the wheaten cargo; and amidst it all the
bodies of the helpless dead—that a few brief hours before had
walked the deck, the stalwart masters of their ship—turned
their disfigured faces towards the sky, pleading for sepulture.
We made a temporary bier of the broken planks, and laid
thereon the corpses, decently arranged. As the vicar, I led
the way, and my people followed with ready zeal as bearers;
and in sad procession we carried our dead up the steep cliff, by
a difficult path, to await, in a room at my vicarage which I
allotted them, the inquest. The ship and her cargo were, as to
any tangible value, utterly lost.

The people of the shore, after having done their best to
search for survivors and to discover the lost bodies, gathered
up fragments of the wreck for fuel and shouldered them away;
not perhaps a lawful spoil, but a venal transgression when
compared with the remembered cruelties of Cornish wreckers.
Then ensued my interview with the rescued man. His name
was Le Daine. I found him refreshed, collected and grateful.
He told me his tale of the sea. The captain and all the crew
but himself were from Arbroath in Scotland. To that harbour
also the vessel belonged. She had been away on a two-years’
voyage, employed in the Mediterranean trade. She had loaded
last at Odessa. She touched at Malta; and there Le Daine,
who had been sick in the hospital, but recovered, had joined
her. There also the captain had engaged a Portuguese cook;
and to this man, as one link in a chain of causes, the loss of
the vessel might be ascribed. He had been wounded in a
street quarrel the night before the vessel sailed from Malta
and lay disabled and useless in his cabin throughout the homeward
voyage. At Falmouth, whither they were bound for
orders, the cook died. The captain and all the crew, except
the cabin-boy, went ashore to attend the funeral. During their
absence the boy, handling in his curiosity the barometer, had
broken the tube and the whole of the quicksilver had run out.
Had this instrument, the pulse of the storm, been preserved,
the crew would have received warning of the sudden and unexpected
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
hurricane and might have stood out to sea; whereas
they were caught in the chops of the Channel, and thus, by
this small incident, the vessel and the mariners found their
fate on the rocks of a remote headland in my lonely parish. I
caused Le Daine to relate in detail the closing events.

“We received orders,” he said, “at Falmouth to make for
Gloucester to discharge. The captain and mate and another
of the crew were to be married on their return to their native
town. They wrote, therefore, to Arbroath from Falmouth, to
announce their safe arrival from their two-years’ voyage, and
their hope in about a week to arrive at Arbroath for welcome
there.”

But in a day or two after this joyful letter there arrived in
Arbroath a leaf torn out of my pocket-book and addressed “To
the Owners of the Vessel the <i>Caledonia</i> of Arbroath,” with the
brief and thrilling tidings, written by myself in pencil, among
the fragments of their wrecked vessel, that the whole crew,
except one man, were lost “upon my rocks.” My note spread
a general dismay in Arbroath, for the crew, from the clannish
relationship among the Scotch, were connected with a large
number of the inhabitants. But to return to the touching
details of Le Daine.

“We rounded the Land’s End,” he said, “that night all well,
and came up Channel with a fair wind. The captain turned in.
It was my watch. All at once, about nine at night, it began to
blow in one moment as if the storm burst out by signal; the
wind went mad; our canvas burst in bits. We reeved fresh
sails: they went also. At last we were under bare poles. The
captain had turned out when the storm began. He sent me
forward to look out for Lundy Light. I saw your cliff.” [This
was a bluff and broken headland just by the southern boundary
of my own glebe.] “I sang out, ‘Land!’ I had hardly done
so when she struck with a blow and stuck fast. Then the
captain sang out, ‘All hands to the maintop!’ and we all
went up. The captain folded his arms and stood by silent.”

Here I asked him, anxious to know how they expressed
themselves at such a time, “But what was said afterwards, Le
Daine?”
.bn 144.png
.pn +1

“Not one word, sir; only once, when the long boat went
over, I said to the skipper: ’sir, the boat is gone.’ But he
made no answer.”

How accurate was Byron’s painting!—

.nf c
<s>“Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”</s>
.nf-
.in 4
“At last there came on a dreadful wave, mast-top high, and
away went the mast by the board, and we with it, into the sea.
I gave myself up. I was the only man on the ship that could
not swim; so, where I fell into the water, there I lay. I felt
the waves beat me and send me on. At last there was a rock
under my hand. I clung on. Just then I saw Alick Kant, one
of our crew, swimming past. I saw him lay his hand on a rock,
and I sang out, ‘Hold on, Alick!’ But a wave rolled and
swept him away, and I never saw his face more. I was beaten
onward and onward among the rocks and the tide, and at last I
felt the ground with my feet. I scrambled on. I saw the cliff,
steep and dark, above my head. I climbed up until I reached a
kind of platform with grass; and there I fell down flat upon my
face, and either I fainted away, or I fell asleep. There I lay a
long time, and when I awoke it was just the break of day.
There was a little yellow flower under my head; and, when
I saw that, I knew I was on dry land.” This was a plant of the
bird’s-foot clover, called in old times, Our Lady’s Finger. He
went on: “I could see no house or sign of people, and the
country looked to me like some wild and desert island. At last
I felt very thirsty, and I tried to get down towards a valley
where I thought I should find water. But before I could reach
it I fell and grew faint again; and there, thank God, sir, you
found me.”

Such was Le Daine’s sad and simple story; and no one
could listen unmoved to the poor solitary survivor of his shipmates
and crew. The coroner arrived, held his ’quest, and the
usual verdict of “Wrecked and cast ashore” empowered me to
inter the dead sailors, found and future, from the same vessel,
with the service in the Prayer-Book for the Burial of the Dead.
This decency of sepulture is the result of a somewhat recent
statute, passed in the reign of George III. Before that time it
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
was the common usage of the coast to dig, just above high-water
mark, a pit on the shore, and therein to cast, without inquest
or religious rite, the carcasses of shipwrecked men. My first
funeral of those lost mariners was a touching and striking
scene. The three bodies first found were buried at the same
time. Behind the coffins, as they were solemnly borne along
the aisle, walked the solitary mourner, Le Daine, weeping
bitterly and aloud. Other eyes were moist; for who could
hear unsoftened the greeting of the Church to these strangers
from the sea, and the “touch that makes the whole earth kin,”
in the hope we breathed, that we too might one day “rest as
these our brethren did”? It was well-nigh too much for those
who served that day. Nor was the interest subdued when, on
the Sunday after the wreck, at the appointed place in the
service, just before the General Thanksgiving, Le Daine rose
up from his place, approached the altar, and uttered in an
audible but broken voice, his thanksgiving for his singular and
safe deliverance from the perils of the sea.

The text of the sermon that day demands its history.
Some time before, a vessel, <i>The Hero</i>, of Liverpool, was seen
in distress, in the offing of a neighbouring harbour, during a
storm. The crew, mistaking a signal from the beach, betook
themselves to their boat. It foundered; and the whole ship’s
company, twelve in number, were drowned in sight of the
shore. But the stout ship held together, and drifted on to the
land, so unshattered by the sea, that the coast-guard, who
went immediately on board, found the fire burning in the cabin.
When the vessel came to be examined, they found in one of the
berths a Bible, and between its leaves a sheet of paper, whereon
some recent hand had transcribed verses, the twenty-first,
twenty-second and twenty-third of the thirty-third chapter of
Isaiah. The same hand had also marked the passage with a
line of ink along the margin. The name of the owner of the
book was also found inscribed on the fly-leaf. He was a youth
of eighteen years of age, the son of a widow; and a statement
under his name recorded that the Bible was “a reward for his
good conduct in a Sunday school.” This text, so identified and
enforced by a hand that soon after grew cold, appeared strangely
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
and strikingly adapted to the funeral of shipwrecked men; and
it was therefore chosen as the theme for our solemn day. The
very hearts of the people seemed hushed to hear it; and every
eye was turned towards Le Daine, who bowed his head upon
his hands and wept. These are the words: “But there the
glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and
streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall
gallant ships pass thereby. For the Lord is our Judge, the
Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us.
Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their
mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a
great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.” Shall I be forgiven
for the vaunt, if I declare that there was not literally a
single face that day unmoistened and unmoved? Few, indeed,
could have borne without deep emotion to see and hear Le
Daine. He remained at Morwenstow six weeks; and during the
whole of this time we sought diligently, and at last we found
the whole crew, nine in number. They were discovered,
some under rocks, jammed in by the force of the water, so that
it took sometimes several ebb-tides, and the strength of many
hands to extricate the corpses. The captain I came upon
myself, lying placidly upon his back, with his arms folded in the
very gesture which Le Daine had described as he stood amid
the crew on the main-top. The hand of the spoiler was about
to assail him, when I suddenly appeared, so that I rescued him
untouched. Each hand grasped a small pouch or bag. One
contained his pistols, the other held two little log-reckoners of
brass; so that his last thoughts were full of duty to his owners
and his ship, and his last efforts for rescue and defence. He
had been manifestly lifted by a billow, and hurled against a rock,
and so slain; for the victims of our cruel sea are seldom drowned,
but beaten to death by violence and the wrath of the billows.
We gathered together one poor fellow in five parts: his limbs
had been wrenched off and his body rent. During our search
for his remains, a man came up to me with something in his
hand, inquiring: “Can you tell me, sir, what is this? Is it a
part of a man?” It was the mangled seaman’s heart; and we
restored it reverently to its place, where it had once beat high
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
with life and courage, with thrilling hope and sickening fear.
Two or three of the dead were not discovered for four or five
weeks after the wreck; and these had become so loathsome from
decay, that it was at peril of health and life to perform the last
duties we owe to our brother-men. But hearts and hands were
found for the work; and at last, the good ship’s company, captain,
mate and crew, were laid at rest, side by side, beneath our
churchyard trees. Groups of grateful letters from Arbroath are
to this day among the most cherished memorials of my escritoire.
Some, written by the friends of the dead, are marvellous proofs
of the good feeling and educated ability of the Scotch people.
One from a father breaks off in irrepressible pathos, with a
burst of “Oh my son, my son!” We placed at the foot of the
captain’s grave the figure-head of his vessel. It is a carved
image, life-size of his native Caledonia, in the garb of her
country, with sword and shield.[#]
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
A copy of verses to Mr. Hawker, thanking him for his conduct, was
written, printed and circulated in Arbroath. They are by one
David Arnott, and dated 13th Oct., 1842. They are of no merit.
They end thus:—
.nf b
Such deeds as thine are registered in heaven,
And there alone can due reward be given.
.nf-
.pm fn-end
.pm letter-start
At the end of about six weeks Le Daine left my house on
his homeward way, a sadder and a richer man. Gifts had been
proffered from many a hand, so that he was able to return to
Jersey with happy and joyful mien, well clothed and with thirty
pounds in his purse. His recollections of our scenery were not
such as were in former times associated with the Cornish shore:
for three years afterward he returned to the place of his disaster
accompanied by his uncle, sister and affianced wife, and he had
brought them, that, in his own joyous words, “they might see
the spot of his great deliverance”; and there, one summer day,
they stood, a group of happy faces, gazing with wonder and gratitude
on our rugged cliffs, that were then clad in that gorgeous
vesture of purple and gold which the heather and gorse wind
and weave along the heights; and the soft blue wave lapping the
sand in gentle cadence, as though the sea had never wreaked
an impulse of ferocity, or rent a helpless prey. Nor was the
thankfulness of the sailor a barren feeling. Whensoever afterward
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
the vicar sought to purchase for his dairy a Jersey cow,
the family and friends of Le Daine rejoiced to ransack the
island until they had found the sleekest, loveliest, best, of that
beautiful breed; and it is to the gratitude of that poor seaman
and stranger from a distant abode, that the herd of the glebe
has long been famous in the land; and hence, as Homer would
have sung, hence came

.nf c
Bleehtah, and Lilith, Neelah, Evan, Neelah, and Katy.
.nf-

Strange to say, Le Daine has been twice shipwrecked since
his first peril, with similar loss of property, but escape of life;
and he is now the master of a vessel in the trade of the Levant.
In the following year a new and another wreck was announced
in the gloom of night. A schooner under bare poles had been
watched for many hours from the cliffs, with the steersman
fastened at the wheel. All at once she tacked, and made for
the shore, and just as she had reached a creek between two reefs
of rock, she foundered and went down. At break of day only her
vane was visible to mark her billowy grave. Not a vestige could
be seen of her crew. But in the course of the day her boat was
drifted ashore, and we found from the name on the stern that
the vessel was the <i>Phœnix</i> of St. Ives. A letter from myself
by immediate post brought up next day from that place a sailor
who introduced himself as the brother of the young man who
had sailed as mate in the wrecked ship. He was a rough, plain-spoken
man, of simple religious cast, without guile or pretence;
one of the good old seafaring sort; the men who “go down to
the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters”;
these, as the Psalmist chants, “see the wonders of the Lord,
and His glories in the deep.” At my side he paced the shore
day after day, in weary quest of the dead. “If I could but get
my poor brother’s bones,” he cried out yearningly, again and
again, “if I could but lay him in the earth, how it would comfort
dear mother at home!” We searched every cranny in the rocks,
and we watched every surging wave, until hope was exchanged
for despair. A reward, of meagre import, it is true, offered by
the Seaman’s Burial Act, to which I have referred, and within
my own domain doubled always by myself, brought us many a
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
comrade in this sickening scrutiny; but for long it was in vain.
At last, one day while we were scattered over a broken stretch
of jumbled rocks that lay in huddled masses along the base of
the cliffs, a loud and sudden shout called me where the seaman
of St. Ives stood. He was gazing down into the broken sea—it
was on a spot near low-water mark—and there, just visible
from underneath a mighty fragment of rock, was seen the ankle
of a man, and a foot still wearing a shoe! “It is my brother!”
wailed the sailor bitterly; “it is our dear Jim; I can swear to
that shoe!” We gathered around: the tide ebbed a very little
after this discovery, and only just enough to leave dry the surface
of the rock under which the body lay. Soon the sea began
again to flow, and very quickly we were driven by the rising
surges from the spot. The anguish of the mourner for his
dead was thrilling to behold and terrible to hear. “Oh my
brother! my brother!” was his sob again and again, “what a
burial-place for our own dear boy!” I tried to soothe him, but
in vain: the only theme to which he could be brought to listen
was the chance—and I confess it seemed to my own secret mind
a hopeless thought—that it might be possible at the next ebb
tide, by skill and strength combined, to move, if ever so little,
the monstrous rock, and so recover the corpse. It was low
water at evening tide, and there was a bright November moon.
We gathered in numbers; for among my parishioners there were
kind and gentle-hearted men, such as had “pity, tenderness and
tears”; and all were moved by the tale of the sailor hurled and
buried beneath a rock by the strong and cruel sea. The scene
of our first nightly assemblage was a weird and striking sight.
Far, far above, loomed the tall and gloomy headlands of the
coast; around us foamed and raged the boiling waves; the
moon cast her massive lowering shadows on rock and sea;

.pm verse-start
And the long moonbeam on the cold, wet sand
Lay, like a jasper column, half-upreared.
.pm verse-end
.pm letter-start
Stout and stalwart forms surrounded me, wielding their
iron bars, pickaxes and ropes. Their efforts were strenuous
but unavailing. The tide soon returned in its strength, and
drove us, baffled from the spot, before we had been able to
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
grasp or shake the ponderous mass. It was calculated by competent
judges that its weight was full fifteen tons: neither could
there be a more graphic image of the resistless strength of the
wrathful sea, than the aspect of this and similar blocks of
rifted stone, that were raised and rolled perpetually by the
power of the billows, and hurled, as in some pastime of the
giants, along the shuddering shore! Deep and bitter was the
grief of the sailor at our failure and retreat. His piteous wail
over the dead recalled the agony of those who are recorded
in Holy Writ—they who grieved for their lost ones, and would
not be comforted, because they were not! That night an
inspiration visited me in my wakeful bed. At a neighbouring
harbour dwelt a relative of mine, who was an engineer, in charge
of the machinery on a breakwater and canal. To him, at
morning light, I sent an appeal for succour; and he immediately
responded with aid and advice. Two strong windlasses,
worked by iron chains, and three or four skilful men, were sent
up by him next day with instructions for their work. Again at
evening ebb we were all on the spot. One of our new assistants,
a very Tubal Cain in aspect and stature, and of the same
craft with that smith before the flood, plunged upon the rock
as the water reluctantly revealed its upper side, and drilled a
couple of holes in the surface with rapid energy, to receive,
each of them, that which he called a Lewis-wedge and a ring.
To these the chains of the windlasses were fastened on. They
then looped a rope around the ankle of the corpse, and gave it,
as the post of honour, to me to hold. It was on the evening of
Sunday[#] that all this was done; and I have deemed it a venial
breach of discipline to omit the nightly service of the church,
in order to suit the tide. Forty strong parishioners, all absentees
from evening prayer, manned the double windlass power;
I intoned the pull; and by a strong and blended effort, the
rocky mass was slowly, silently and gently upheaved; a slight
haul at the rope, and up to our startled view and to the sudden
lights, came forth the altered, ghastly, flattened semblance of a
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
man! “My brother! my brother!” shrieked a well-known
voice at my side, and tears of gratitude and suffering gushed in
mingled torrent over his rugged cheek. A coffin had been made
ready, under the hope of final success; and therein we reverently
laid the disfigured carcass of one who, a little while
before, had been the young and joyous inmate of a fond and
happy home. We had to clamber up a steep and difficult pathway
along the cliff with the body, which was carried by the
bearers in a kind of funeral train. The vicar of course led the
way.[#] When we were about half-way up, a singular and striking
event occurred, which moved us all exceedingly. Unobserved,
for all were intent in their solemn task, a vessel had neared the
shore: she lay to, and, as it seemed, had watched us with night-glasses
from the deck, or had discerned us from the torches and
lanterns in our hands. For all at once there sounded along the
air three deep and thrilling cheers! And we could see that the
crew on board had manned their yards. It was manifest that
their loyal and hearty voices and gestures were intended to
greet our fulfilment of duty to a brother mariner’s remains.
The burial-place of the dead sailors in this churchyard is a
fair and fitting scene for their quiet rest. Full in view, and
audible in sound, for ever rolls the sea. Is it not to them a
soothing requiem that

.pm verse-start
Old Ocean, with its everlasting voice,
As in perpetual jubilee, proclaims
The praises of the Almighty?
.pm verse-end
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
A man present on this occasion tells me that the recovery of the body
took place on a Monday, and not on a Sunday. Mr. Hawker had daily
prayer in his church.—<i>S. B.-G.</i>
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
With cross going before him, in his surplice, reciting psalms.
.pm fn-end
.pm letter-start
.ni
Trees stand, like warders, beside their graves; and the Norman
shingled church, “the mother of us all,” dwells in silence by, to
watch over her safe and slumbering dead. And it recalls the
imagery of the Holy Book wherein we read of the gathered
reliques of the ancient slain: “And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah
took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock from the
beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of
heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on
them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night”.

.pi
A year had passed away when the return of the equinox
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
admonished us again to listen for storms and wrecks. There
are men in this district whose usage it is at every outbreak of
a gale of wind to watch the cliffs from rise to set of sun. Of
these my quaint old parishioner, Peter Barrow, was one. On a
wild winter day I found myself seated on a rock with Peter
standing by, at a point that overhung the sea. We were both
gazing with anxious dismay at a ship which was beating to and
fro in the Channel, and had now drifted much too near to the
shore: she had come into sight some hours before, struggling
with Harty Race, the local name of a narrow boisterous run of
sea between Lundy and the land; and she was now within three
or four miles of our rocks. “Ah, sir!” said Peter, “the coastmen
say—

.nf b
From Padstowe Point to Lundy Light,
Is a watery grave by day or night.
.nf-

And I think the poor fellows off there will find it so.” All at
once, as we still watched the vessel labouring in the sea, a boat
was launched over her side, and several men plunged into it
one by one. With strained and anxious eyes we searched the
billows for the course of the boat. Sometimes we caught a
glimpse as it rode upon some surging wave; then it disappeared
a while. At last we could see it no more. Meanwhile the
vessel had held down Channel, tacked and steered as if still
beneath the guidance of some of her crew, although it must
have been in sheer desperation that they still hugged the shore.
What was to be done? If she struck, the men still on board
must perish without help, for nightfall drew on. If the boat
reappeared, Peter could make a signal where to land. In hot
haste then I made for the vicarage, ordered my horse, and
returned towards the cliffs. The ship rode on, and I accompanied
her way along the shore. She reached the offing of Bude
Haven, and there grounded on the sand. No boatman could
be induced to put off, and thick darkness soon after fell. I
returned worn, heartsick, and weary on my homeward way;
there strange tidings greeted me: the boat which we had
watched so long had been rolled ashore by the billows, empty.
Peter Barrow had hauled her above high-water mark, and had
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
found a name, the <i>Alonzo</i> of Stockton-on-Tees, on her stern.
That night I wrote as usual to the owner, with news of the
wreck, and the next day we were able to guess at the misfortunes
of the stranded ship: a boat had visited the vessel, and found
her freighted with iron from Gloucester for a Queen’s yard
round the Land’s End. Her papers in the cabin showed that
her crew of nine men had been reported all sound and well
three days before. The owners’ agent arrived; and he stated
that her captain was a brave and trusty officer, and that he
must have been compelled by his men to join them when they
deserted the ship. They must all have been swamped and lost
not long after the launch of the boat, and while we watched
for them in vain amid the waves. Then ensued what has long
been with me the saddest and most painful duty of the shore:
we sought and waited for the dead. Now, there is a folk-lore
of the beach, that no corpse will float or be found until the
ninth day after death. The truth is, that about that time the
body proceeds to decompose; and as a natural result it ascends
to the surface of the current, is brought into the shallows of
the tide, and is there found. The owners’ representative was
my guest for ten days; and with the help of the ship’s papers
and his own personal knowledge we were able to identify the
dead. First of all, the body of the captain came in: he was
a fine, stalwart, and resolute-looking man. His countenance,
however, had a grim and angry aspect, just such an expression
as would verify the truth of our suspicion that he had been
driven by others to forsake his deck. Then arrived the mate
and three other men of the crew. None were placid of feature
or calm and pleasant in look, as those usually are who are
accidentally drowned, or who die in their beds.

But one day my strange old man, Peter Barrow, came to
me in triumphant haste with the loud greeting, “Sir! we have
got a noble corpse down on your beach. We have just laid
him down above high-water mark, and he is as comely a body
as a man shall see!” I made haste to the spot; and there
lay, with the light of a calm and wintry day falling on his
manly form, a fine and stately example of a man: he was six
feet two inches in height, of firm and accurate proportion
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
throughout; and he must have been, indeed, in life a shape of
noble symmetry and grace. On his broad smooth chest was
tattooed a rood, that is to say, our blessed Saviour on His cross,
with on the one hand His mother, and on the other St. John
the Evangelist: underneath were the initial letters of a name,
P. B. His arms also were marked with tracery in the same
blue lines. On his right arm was engraved P. B. again, and
E. M., the letters linked with a wreath; and on his left arm
was an anchor, as I imagined the symbol of hope, and the
small blue forget-me-not flower. The greater number of my
dead sailors—and I have myself said the burial-service over
forty-two such men rescued from the sea—were so decorated
with some distinctive emblem and name; and it is their object
and intent, when they assume these signs, to secure identity
for their bodies if their lives are lost at sea. We carried the
strangely decorated man to his comrades of the deck; and
gradually in the course of one month we discovered and carefully
buried the total crew of nine strong men. These gathered
strangers, the united assemblage from many a distant and
diverse abode, now calmly slept among our rural and homely
graves, the stout seamen of the ship <i>Alonzo</i> of Stockton-on-Tees.
The boat which had foundered with them we brought also to
the churchyard; and there, just by their place of rest, we placed
her beside them, keel upward to the sky, in token that her
work, too, was over, and her voyage done. There her timbers
slowly moulder still; and by-and-by her dust will mingle in
the scenery of death with the ashes of those living hearts
and hands that manned her, in their last unavailing launch, and
fruitless struggle for the mastery of life.[#] But the history of
the <i>Alonzo</i> is not yet closed. Three years afterwards a letter
arrived from the Danish consul at a neighbouring seaport town,
addressed to myself as the vicar of the parish; and the hope of
the writer was that he might be able to ascertain through
myself, for two anxious and grieving parents in Denmark,
tidings of their lost son. His name, he said, was Philip Bengstein;
and it was in the correspondence that this strange and
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
touching history transpired. The father, who immediately
afterward wrote to my address, told me in tearful words that
his son, bearing that name, had gone away from his native home
because his parents had resisted a marriage which he was
desirous to contract. They found that he had gone to sea
before the mast, a position much below his station in life; and
they had traced him from ship to ship, until at last they found
him on the papers of the <i>Alonzo</i> of Stockton-on-Tees. Then
their inquiry as to the fate of that vessel had led them to the
knowledge, through the owners, that the vicar of a parish on
the seaboard of North Cornwall could in all likelihood convey
to them some tidings of their long lost son. I related in reply
the history of the death, discovery and burial of the unfortunate
young man. I was enabled to verify and to understand the
initial letters of his own name, and of her who was not to
become his bride, although she still clung to his memory in
loving loneliness in that foreign land. Ample evidence, therefore,
verified his corpse; and I was proudly enabled to certify
to his parents the reverent burial of their child. A letter is
treasured among my papers filled to overflowing with the strong
and earnest gratitude of a stranger and a Dane for the kindness
we had rendered to one who loved “not wisely” perchance,
“but too well,” to that son who had been lost, and was found
too late; one, too, whose “course of true love” had brought
him from distant Denmark to a green hillock among the dead,
beneath a lonely tower among the trees, by the Cornish sea.
What a picture was that which we saw painted upon the bosom
and limbs of a dead man, of fond and faithful love, of severed
and broken hearts, of disappointed hope, of a vacant chair and
a hushed voice in a far-away Danish home!
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
The boat is rotted nearly away, the bows alone remain tolerably
entire.—S. B.-G.
.pm fn-end

.bn 156.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch06
CHAPTER VI
.pm ch-hd-start
Wellcombe—Mr. Hawker Postman to Wellcombe—The Miss Kitties—Advertisement
of Roger Giles—Superstitions—The Evil Eye—The
Spiritual Ether—The Vicar’s Pigs Bewitched—Horse killed by a Witch—He
finds a lost Hen—A Lecture against Witchcraft—Its Failure—An
Encounter with the Pixies—Curious Picture of a Pixie Revel—The
Fairy-Ring—Antony Cleverdon and the Mermaids.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.4 0.7
<sc>About</sc> three miles from Morwenstow as the
crow flies, and five or six by road, on the
coast, is a little church and hamlet called
Wellcombe. The church probably occupies the site
of a cell of St. Nectan, and is dedicated to him. It
is old and was interesting.[#] The parish forms a
horseshoe with the heels toward the sea, which is
here reached by a rapidly descending glen ending in
a cove. It is a small parish, with some 230 inhabitants,
people of a race different from those in the
adjoining parishes, with black eyes and hair, and dark-skinned.
“Dark-grained as a Wellcombe woman,”
is a saying in the neighbourhood when a brunette is
being described. The people are singularly ignorant
and superstitious: they are a religious people, and
attend church with great regularity and devotion.
.pm fn-start
Alas! here the wrecker has been at work. There were carved bench-ends
with curious heads, technically called poppy-heads, but unlike any I
have seen elsewhere, unique, I believe. These heads have been cut off,
thrown away and the bench-ends stuck against the screen. The seats are
now of deal.
.pm fn-end

.bn 157.png
.pn +1
The chief landowner and lord of the manor is Lord
Clinton, and the vicarage is in his gift. It is worth
only seventy pounds, and there is neither glebe nor
parsonage house; consequently Wellcombe formerly
went with Hartland or Morwenstow.

When Mr. Hawker became vicar of Morwenstow,
Wellcombe was held by the vicar of Hartland; but
on his death, in 1851, Lord Clinton gave it to Mr.
Hawker.

Mr. Hawker accordingly took three services every
Sunday. He had his morning prayer at Morwenstow,
at eleven, and then drove over to Wellcombe, where
he had afternoon service at two <sc>P.M.</sc>, and then
returned to Morwenstow for evening prayer at five
<sc>P.M.</sc>

He never ate between services. Directly morning
prayer was over, he got into his gig; a basket of
pipes, all loaded, was handed in, and he drove off to
Wellcombe, smoking all the way; and, after having
taken duty, he smoked all the way back. Once a
month he celebrated the holy communion at Wellcombe;
and then, through the kindness of the rector
of Kilkhampton, the morning service at Morwenstow
was not allowed to fall through.

Mr. Hawker for long acted as postman to Wellcombe.
The inhabitants of that remote village did
not often get letters; when missives arrived for them,
they were left at Morwenstow vicarage, and on the
following Sunday a distribution of the post took
place in the porch after divine service.

But the parishioners of Wellcombe were no
“scholards”; and the vicar was generally required
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
to read their letters to them, and sometimes to write
the answers.

On one occasion he was reading a letter to an old
woman of Wellcombe, whose son was in Brazil.
Part of the letter ran as follows:  “I cannot tell
you, dear mother, how the muskitties [mosquitoes]
torment me. They never leave me alone, but pursue
me everywhere.”

“To think of that!” interrupted the old woman.
“My Ezekiel must be a handsome lad! But I’m
interrupting. Do you go on, please, parson.”

“Indeed, dear mother,” continued the vicar, reading,
“I shut my door and window of an evening, to
keep them out of my room.”

“Dear life!” exclaimed the old woman, “what
will the world come to next!”

“And yet,” continued the vicar, “they do not leave
me alone. I believe they come down the chimney
to get at me.”

“Well, well, now, parson!” exclaimed the mother,
holding up her hands; “to think how forward of
them!”

“Of whom?”

“Why, the Miss Kitties, sure. When I were
young, maidens would have blushed to do such a
thing. And come down the chimbley too!” After
a pause, mother’s pride overmastering sense of what
befitted her sex:  “But Ezekiel must be rare handsome,
for the maidens to be after him so. And, I
reckon, the Miss Kitties is quality-folk too.”

Mr. Hawker thus describes the Wellcombe people:
“They have amongst them no farrier for their cattle,
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
no medical man for themselves, no beer-house, no
shop; a man who travels for a distant town (Stratton)
supplies them with sugar by the ounce, or
tea in smaller quantities still. Not a newspaper is
taken in throughout the hamlet, although they are
occasionally astonished and delighted by the arrival,
from some almost forgotten friend in Canada, of
an ancient copy of <i>The Toronto Gazette</i>. This publication
they pore over to weariness; and on Sunday
they will worry the clergyman with questions about
transatlantic places and names, of which he is
obliged to confess himself utterly ignorant. An
ancient dame once exhibited her prayer-book, very
nearly worn out, printed in the reign of George II.,
and very much thumbed at the page from which
she assiduously prayed for the welfare of Prince
Frederick.”

The people of Wellcombe were very ignorant. Indeed,
a good deal of ignorance lingered late in the
West of England. The schoolmaster had not thrown
a great blaze of light on the Cornish mind in the
first half of the present century.

I give a specimen of English composition by a
schoolmaster of the old style in Devonshire; and it
may be guessed that the Cornish fared not better
for teachers than their Wessex neighbours.

This is an advertisement, said to have been written
over a little shop:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>Roger Giles</sc>, Surgin, Parish clark and Skulemaster, Groser,
and Hundertaker, Respectably informs ladys and gentlemen
that he drors teef without wateing a minit, applies laches
every hour, blisters on the lowest tarms, and vizicks for a penny
a peace. He sells Godfather’s Kordales, kuts korns, bunyons,
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
dokters hosses, clips donkies, wance a munth, and undertakes
to luke arter every bodies nayls by the ear. Joes-harps, penny
wissels, brass kanel-sticks, fryinpans, and other moozikal hinstrumints
hat grately reydooced figers. Young ladys and
genelmen larnes their grammur and langeudge, in the purtiest
manner, also grate care taken off their morrels and spellin.
Also zarm-zinging, tayching the base vial, and all other zorts
of vancy-work, squadrils, pokers, weazils, and all country dances
tort at home and abroad at perfekshun. Perfumery and znuff,
in all its branches. As times is cruel bad, I begs to tell ey that
i his just beginned to sell all sorts of stashonary ware, cox, hens,
vouls, pigs, and all other kinds of poultry. Blakin-brishes,
herrins, coles, skrubbin-brishes, traykel, godly bukes and bibles,
mise-traps, brick-dist, whisker-seed, morrel pokkerankerchers,
and all zorts of swatemaits, including taters, sassages, and
other gardin stuff, bakky, zigars, lamp oyle, tay-kittles, and
other intoxzikatin likkers; a dale of fruit, hats, zongs, hare
oyle, pattins, bukkits, grindin stones, and other aitables, korn
and bunyon zalve and all hardware. I as laid in a large
azzortment of trype, dogs’ mate, lolipops, ginger-beer, matches,
and other pikkles, such as hepsom salts, hoysters, Winzer
sope, anzetrar.

P.S.—I tayches gografy, rithmetic, cowstiks, jimnastiks,
and other chynees tricks.
.pm letter-end

I should have held this to be an invention inspired
by Caleb Quotem, in George Colman’s play “The
Review,” but that Mr. Burton of the Curiosity Shop,
Falmouth, has shown me old signboards almost as
absurd.

The people of Wellcombe were not only ignorant,
but superstitious. Mr. Hawker shared at least some
of their superstitions. Living as he did in a visionary
dream-world of spirits, he was ready to admit,
without questioning, the stories he heard of witchcraft
and the power of the evil eye.
.bn 161.png
.pn +1

Whenever he came across any one with a peculiar
eyeball, sometimes bright and clear, and at others
covered with a filmy gauze, or a double pupil, ringed
twice, or a larger eye on the left than on the right
side, he would hold the thumb, fore and middle fingers
in a peculiar manner, so as to ward off the evil
effect of the eye.

He had been descanting one day on the blight
which such an eye could cast, when his companion
said: “Really, Mr. Hawker, you do not believe such
rubbish as this in the nineteenth century.”

He turned round and said gravely: “I do not pretend
to be wiser than the Word of God. I find that
the evil eye is reckoned along with ‘blasphemy,
pride and foolishness,’ as things that defile a man.”[#]

Mr. Hawker had a theory that there was an atmosphere
which surrounded men, imperceptible to the
senses, which was the vehicle of spirit, in which
angels and devils moved, and which vibrated with
spiritual influences affecting the soul. Every passion
man felt set this ether trembling, and made itself
felt throughout the spiritual world. A sensation of
love or anger or jealousy felt by one man was like
a stone thrown into a pool; and it sent a ripple
throughout the spiritual universe which touched and
communicated itself to every spiritual being. Some
mortal men, having a highly refined soul, were as
conscious of these pulsations as disembodied beings;
but the majority are so numbed in their spiritual
part as to make no response to these movements.

.pm fn-start
Mark vii. 21; <i>cf.</i> also Prov. xxiii. 6, xxviii. 22; Matt.
vi. 23; Luke xi. 34; Matt. xx. 15.
.pm fn-end
.bn 162.png
.pn +1

He pointed out that photography has brought to
light and taken cognisance of a chemical element in
the sun’s rays of which none formerly knew anything,
but the existence of which is now proved; so,
in like manner, was there a spiritual element in the
atmosphere of which science could not give account,
as its action could only be registered by the soul of
man, which answered to the calms and storms in it
as the barometer to the atmosphere and the films of
gold-leaf in the magnetometer to the commotions of
the magnetic wave.

There was an old woman at Morwenstow who he
fully believed was a witch. If any one combated
his statement he would answer: “I have seen the
five black spots placed diagonally under her tongue,
which are evidences of what she is. They are like
those in the feet of swine, made by the entrance into
them of the demons at Gadara.”

This old woman came every day to the vicarage
for skimmed milk. One day there was none and
she had to leave with an empty can. “As she went
away,” said the vicar, “I saw her go mumbling
something beside the pig-sty. She looked over at
the pigs and her eye and incantation worked. I ran
out ten minutes after to look at my sow, which had
farrowed lately; and there I saw the sow, which, like
Medea, had taken a hatred to her own offspring, spurning
them away from her milk; and there sat all the
nine sucking-pigs on their tails, with their fore-paws
in the air, begging in piteous fashion; but the evil eye
of old Cherry had turned the mother’s heart to stone,
and she let them die one by one before her eyes.”
.bn 163.png
.pn +1

Some years agone a violent thunderstorm passed
over the parish and wrought great damage in its
course. Trees were rooted up, cattle killed, and a
rick or two set on fire.

“It so befel that I visited, the day after, one of the
chief agricultural inhabitants of the village; and I
found the farmer and his men standing by a ditch
wherein lay, heels upward, a fine young horse, quite
dead. ‘Here, sir,’ he shouted, as I came on, ‘only
please to look: is not this a sight to see?’ I looked
at the poor animal and uttered my sympathy and
regret at the loss. ‘One of the fearful results,’ I said,
‘of the storm yesterday.’ ‘There, Jem,’ said he to
one of his men triumphantly, ‘didn’t I say the parson
would find it out? Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘it is as
you say: it is all that wretched old Cherry Parnell’s
doing, with her vengeance and her noise.’ I stared
with astonishment at this unlooked-for interpretation
which he had put into my mouth, and waited for him
to explain. ‘You see, sir,’ he went on to say, ‘the
case was this: Old Cherry came up to my place,
tottering along, and mumbling that she wanted a
fagot of wood. I said to her: “Cherry, I gave you
one only two days agone, and another two days
before that; and I must say that I didn’t make up
my woodrick altogether for you.” So she turned
away, looking very grany, and muttering something.
Well, sir, last night as I was in bed, I and my wife,
all to once there bursted a thunderbolt and shaked
the very room and house. Up we started, and my
wife says: “Oh, father, old Cherry’s up! I wish I
had gone after her with that there faggot.” I confess
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
I thought in my mind, I wish she had; but it was
too late then, and I would try to hope for the best.
But now, sir, you see with your own eyes what that
revengeful old woman has been and done. And I do
think, sir,’ he went on to say, changing his tone to a
kind of indignant growl, ‘I do think, that when I call
to mind how I’ve paid tithe and rates faithfully all
these years and kept my place in church before your
reverence every Sunday and always voted in the
vestries that what hath and be ought to be—I do
think that such ones as old Cherry Parnell never
ought to be allowed to meddle with such things as
thunder and lightning.’”

A farmer came to Mr. Hawker once with the complaint:
“Parson, I’ve lost my brown speckled hen; I
reckon old Cherry have been and conjured her away.
I wish you’d be so gude as to draw a circle, and find
out where my brown speckled hen have been spirited
away to.”

The vicar had his cross-handled walking-stick in
his hand, a sort of Oriental pastoral staff; and he
forthwith drew a circle in the dust and sketched a
pentacle within it—Solomon’s seal, in fact—whilst
he thought the matter over.

“I believe, Thomas,” said he, “the brown speckled
hen has never got out of your lane; the hedges are
walled and high.”

In the afternoon back came the farmer. “Parson,
you’ve done for old Cherry with your circle. I found
the brown speckled hen in our lane.”

Not twenty miles from Morwenstow, a few years
ago, occurred the following circumstances, which I
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
know are true, and which I give here as an illustration
of the superstition which prevails in Devon and
Cornwall.

A boy of the parish of Bratton Clovelly, proving intelligent
in the national school, was sent by the rector
to Exeter to the training college, in time passed his
examination and obtained his certificate. He then
returned for a holiday to his native village and
volunteered to deliver in the schoolroom a lecture on
“Popular Superstitions.”

The lecture was announced, the rector took the
chair, the room was crowded, and a very fair discourse
was delivered against the prevailing belief in
witchcraft. The lecturer was heard patiently to the
close, and then up rose one of the principal farmers
in the place, Brown by name.

“Mr. Lecturer,” said he, “and all good people
here assembled: You’ve had your say against witchcraft,
and you says that there ain’t nothing of the
sort. Now, I’ll tell’y a thing or two—facts; and a
pinch of facts is worth a bushel of reasons. There
was, t’other day, my cow Primrose, the Guernsey, and
as gude a cow for milk as ever was. Well, on that
day, when my missus put the milk on the fire to
scald ’un, it wouldn’t hot. She put on a plenty of
wood, and turves, and brimmel-bushes, but ’twouldn’t
hot noways. And sez she to me, as I comes in, ‘I’ll
tell’y what tez, Richard, Primrose has been overlooked
by old Betty Spry. Now, you go off as fast
as you can to the White Witch up to Exeter.’ Well,
I did so; and when I came to the White Witch, as
lives nigh All Hallows on the Walls, I was shown into
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
a room; and there was a farmer stamping about, in
just such a predicament as me. Sez I, ‘Are you
come to see the White Witch?’—‘Ah, that I be!’
sez he; ‘my old cow has fallen ill, and won’t give no
milk.’—‘Why,’ sez I, ‘my cow’s milk won’t hot, and
the missus has put a lot of fire underneath.’—‘Do
you suspect anybody?’ sez he.—‘I do,’ sez I; ‘there’s
old Betty Spry has an evil eye, and her’s the one as
has done it.’ Just then the door opens, and the
maiden looks in, and sez to me, ‘Mr. Brown, the
White Witch will speak with you.’ And then I am
shown into the next room. Well, directly I come in,
sez he to me, ‘I know what you’ve come for before
you speak a word: your cow’s milk won’t scald. I’ll
tell’y why: she’s been overlooked by an old woman
named Betty Spry.’ He said so to me, as sure as
eggs is eggs, and I never had told him not one word.
Then sez he to me, ‘You go home, and get sticks out
four different parishes, and set them under the milk,
and her’ll boil.’ Well, I paid ’un a crown, and then I
came here; and I fetched sticks from Lew Trenchard,
and from Stowford, and from German’s Week, and
from Broadwood Widger; and no sooner were they
lighted under the pan than the milk boiled.”

Then up rose Farmer Tickle, very red in the face,
and said: “Mr. Lecturer: You’ve said that there be
no such things as spirits and ghosts. I’ll tell’y something.
I was coming over Broadbury one night, and
somehow or other I lost my way. I was afraid of
falling into the bog—you know all about that bog,
don’t’y, by the old Roman castle? There was a
gentleman—a sort of traveller, in my recollection—was
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
driving over Broadbury in a light tax-cart, and
suddenly he went into the bog, and his horse and cart
were swallowed up, and he had much ado to save
himself. Well, he didn’t want to lose his tax-cart
and harness, for the tax-cart contained bales of cloth
and the harness was new; so he went to the blacksmith
at the cross, and got him to come there with
his man and grappling-irons. They let the irons
down into the bog, and presently they got hold of
something and began to draw it up. It was a horse;
and they threw it on the side and said, ‘There, sir,
now you have your horse.’—‘No,’ answered he, looking
hard at it, ‘this is a hunter, with saddle and
stirrups. Let down the irons again.’ So they felt
about once more, and presently they pulled up another
horse and laid him on the side. ‘There, sir, is this
yours?’ sez the blacksmith; ‘he’s in gig-harness all
right.’—‘No,’ sez the traveller; ‘my horse was a
dapple, and this is a grey. Down with the irons
again.’ This time they cries out, ‘Yo, heave-oh!
we’ve got hold of the tax-cart!’ But when they
pulled ’un up it was a phaeton. So they let their
grappling-irons down again, and presently up came
another horse, and this was in harness; but sez the
traveller, ‘He’s not mine, for mine was a mare. Try
again, my fine fellows.’ Next as came up had no harness
at all on; and the next had blinkers with Squire
G——’s crest on them. Well, they worked all day,
and they got up a dozen horses and three carriages,
but they never found the traveller’s tax-cart and the
dapple mare.

“But, Lor’ bless me! I’ve been wandering again
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
on Broadbury, and now I must return to the point.
Knowing what I did about the bog, I was a bit frighted
of falling into her. Presently I came to a bit of old
quarry and rock, and I thought there might be some
one about, so I shouted at the top of my voice,
‘Farmer Tickle has lost his way.’ Well, just then a
voice from among the stones answered me, and said,
‘Who? who?’—‘Farmer Tickle of X——, I say.’
Then the voice answered again, asking: ‘Who? who?
who?’—‘Are ye hard of hearing?’ I shouted. ‘I say
tez Farmer Tickle, as live in the old rummling farm of
Southcot in X—— parish.’ As imperent as possible
again the voice asked: ‘Who? who? who?’ ’Tez
Farmer Tickle, I tell’y!’ I shouted; ‘and if you axes
again I’ll come along of you with my stick.’—‘Who?
who? who?’ I ran to the rocks and beat about
with my stick; and then a great white thing rushed
out——”

“It was an owl,” said the lecturer scornfully.

“An owl!” echoed Farmer Tickle. “I put it to
the meeting. A man as says this was an owl, and
not a pixie, would say anything!” and he sat down
amidst great applause.

Then up rose Farmer Brown once more.

“Gentlemen, and labouring men, and also women,”
he began, “I’ll give you another pinch of facts.
Before I was married I was going along by Culmpit
one day, when I met old Betty Spry, and she sez to
me, ‘Cross my hand with silver, my pretty boy, and
I’ll tell you who your true love will be.’ So I thinks
I’d like to know that, and I gives her a sixpence.
Then sez she, ‘Mark the first maiden that you meet
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
as you go along the lane that leads to Eastway
House: she’s the one that will make you a wife.’
Well, I was going along that way, and the first
maiden I met was Patience Kite. I thought she was
comely and fresh-looking; so, after going a few steps
on, I turns my head over my shoulder and looks back
at her; and what in the world should she be doing at
exactly the same minute but looking back at me!
Then I went after her and said, ‘Patience, will you
be Mrs. Brown?’ and she said, ‘I don’t mind, I’m
noways partickler.’ And now she is my wife. Look
at her yonder, as red as a turkey-cock; there she sits,
and so you may know my story is true. But how
did Betty Spry know this before ever I had spoken
the words? That beats me!”

Then, once more, up stood Farmer Tickle.

“Mr. Lecturer, Mr. Chairman, I puts it to you.
First and last we must come to Holy Scripter. Now,
I ask you, Mr. Chairman, being our parson, and you,
Mr. Lecturer, being a scholard, and all you as have
got Bibles, whether Holy Scripter does not say,
‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’—whether
Holy Scripter does not say that the works of the
flesh are idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
and such like? Now, if witchcraft be all
moonshine, then I reckon so be hatred, variance, and
emulations too. Now, I put it to the meeting, which
is true? Which does it vote for, the Holy Bible and
witchcraft, or Mr. Lecturer and his new-fangled nonsense?
Those in favour of Scripter and witches hold
up their hands.”

Need I say that witchcraft carried the day.
.bn 170.png
.pn +1

One of Mr. Hawker’s parishioners had an encounter
with pixies. Pixies, it must be explained, are elves,
who dance on the sward and make fairy-rings; others
work in mines; others, again, haunt old houses.

This man had been to Stratton market. On his
way home, as he was passing between dense hedges,
suddenly he saw a light, and heard music and singing.
He stood still, and looked and listened. Passing
through the hedge, he saw the little people in a
ring dancing; and there sat on a toadstool an elf
with a lantern in his hand, made of a campanula, out
of which streamed a greenish-blue light. As the
pixies danced, they sang.

“Sir,”—this is the man’s own account,—“I
looked and listened a while, and then I got quietly
hold of a great big stone, and heaved it up, and I
dreshed in amongst them all; and then I up on my
horse, and galloped away as hard as I could, and
never drew rein till I came home to Morwenstow.
But, when the stone fell among them all, out went
the light. You don’t believe me? But it be true,
true as gospel; for next day I went back to the
spot, and there lay the stone, just where I had
dreshed it.”

I have got a curious oil-painting in Lew Trenchard
House, dating from the reign of William and Mary
as I judge by the costume. It represents a pixie
revel. In the background is an elfin city, illumined
by the moon. Before the gates is a ring of tiny
beings, dancing merrily around what is probably a
corpse-candle: it is a candle-stump, standing on the
ground, and the flame diffuses a pallid white light.
.bn 171.png
.pn +1

In the foreground is water, on which floats a
pumpkin, with a quarter cut out of it, so as to turn
it into a boat with a hood. In this the pixie king
and his consort are enthroned, while round the sides
of the boat sit the court, dressed in the costume of
the period of William of Orange. On the hood sits
a little elf, with a red toadstool, as an umbrella, over
the heads of the king and queen. In the bow sits
Jack-o’-lantern, with a cresset in his hands, dressed
in a red jacket. Beside him is an elf playing on a
Jew’s-harp, which is as large as himself; and another
mischievous red-coated sprite is touching the vibrating
tongue of the harp with a large extinguisher, so
as to stop the music.

The water all round the royal barge is full of little
old women and red-jacketed hobgoblins in egg-shells
and crab-shells; whilst some of the pixies, who have
been making a ladder of an iron boat-chain, have
missed their footing, and are splashing about in the
water. In another part of the picture the sprites
appear to be illumining the window of a crumbling
tower.

Mr. Hawker had a curious superstition about
fairy-rings. There was one on the cliff. Some years
ago he was visited by Lady ——, who drove over
from Bude. As he walked with her on the sward,
they came to the ring in the grass, and she was about
to step into it, when he arrested her abruptly, and
said: “Beware how you set foot within a fairy-ring:
it will bring ill-luck.”

“Oh, nonsense, Mr. Hawker! the circle is made
by toadstools. See, here is one: I will pick it.”
.bn 172.png
.pn +1

“If you do, there will be shortly a death in your
house.”

She neglected the warning, and picked one of the
fairy champignons.

Within a week a little daughter died.

Another similar coincidence confirmed him in his
belief. The curate of Bridgerule and his wife came
to see him, and much the same scene took place.
The curate, in spite of his warning, kicked over a
toadstool in the ring, and handed it to his wife.

Ten days after, Mr. Hawker got a heart-broken
letter from the wife, an Irish lady, in which she said:
“Oh, why did we neglect your prophecy! why did
we give no heed to your word! When we returned
to Bridgerule, our little Mary sickened; and now we
have just laid her in her grave.”

He was staying with a friend. Suddenly the table
gave a crack. Mr. Hawker started, and, laying his
hand on the table, said: “Mark my words, there has
been a death in my family.”

By next post came news of the death of one of the
Miss I’ans.

At Wellcombe was an old man, Antony Cleverdon,
from whom Mr. Hawker learned many charms, some
of which he has given in his <i>Footprints of Former
Men</i>. This old man, commonly called Uncle Tony,
was a source of great amusement to the vicar, who
delighted to visit and converse with him.

“Sir,” said Uncle Tony to him one day, “there is
one thing I want to ask you, if I may be so free, and
it is this: Why should a merrymaid (the local name
for mermaid), that will ride upon the waters in such
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
terrible storms, never lose her looking-glass and
comb?”

“Well, I suppose,” answered the vicar, “that, if
there are such creatures, Tony, they must wear their
looking-glasses and combs fastened on somehow—like
fins to a fish.”

“See!” said Tony, chuckling with delight, “what
a thing it is to know the Scriptures like your reverence:
I never should have found it out. But
there’s another point, sir, I should like to know, if
you please: I’ve been bothered about it in my mind
hundreds of times. Here be I, that have gone up
and down Wellcombe cliffs and streams fifty years
come next Candlemas, and I’ve gone and watched
the water by moonlight and sunlight, days and nights,
on purpose, in rough weather and smooth (even Sundays
too, saving your presence)—and my sight as
good as most men’s—and yet I never could come
to see a merrymaid in all my life! How’s that,
sir?”

“Are you sure, Tony,” the vicar rejoined, “that
there are such things in existence at all?”

“Oh, sir, my old father seen her twice! He was
out once by night for wreck (my father watched the
coast like many of the old people formerly), and it
came to pass that he was down by the Duck Pool on
the sand at low-water tide, and all at once he heard
music in the sea. Well, he croped on behind a rock,
like a coast-guard man watching a boat, and got very
near the noise. He couldn’t make out the words,
but the sound was exactly like Bill Martin’s voice
that singed second counter in church: at last he got
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
very near, and there was the merrymaid very plain
to be seen, swimming about on the waves like a
woman bathing, and singing away. But my father
said it was very sad and solemn to hear—more like
the tune of a funeral hymn than a Christmas carol, by
far—but it was so sweet that it was as much as he
could do to hold back from plunging into the tide
after her. And he an old man of sixty-seven, with
a wife and a houseful of children at home! The
second time was down here by Wellcombe Pits. He
had been looking out for spars: there was a ship
breaking up in the Channel, and he saw some one
move just at half-tide mark. So he went on very
softly, step and step, till he got nigh the place; and
there was the merrymaid sitting on a rock—the
bootifullest merrymaid that eye could behold—and
she was twisting about her long hair, and dressing
it just like one of our girls getting ready for her
sweetheart on a Sunday. The old man made sure
he should greep hold of her round the waist, before
ever she found him out; and he had got so near that
a couple of paces more, and he would have caught
her, as sure as tithe or tax, when, lo and behold, she
looked back and glimpsed him! So in one moment
she dived head foremost off the rock, and then
tumbled herself topsy-turvy about in the water, and
cast a look at my poor father, and grinned like a
seal!”
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch07
CHAPTER VII
.pm ch-hd-start
Condition of the Church last Century—Parson Radford—The Death of a
Pluralist—Opposition Mr. Hawker met with—The Bryanites—Hunting
the Devil—Bill Martin’s Prayer-meeting—Mr. Pengelly and the
Candle-end—Cheated by a Tramp—Mr. Hawker and the Dissenters—Mr.
B——’s Pew—A Special Providence over the Church—His Prayer
when threatened with the Loss of St. John’s Well—Objections to Hysterical
Religion—Mr. Vincent’s Hat—Regard felt for him by old Pupils—“He
did not appreciate me”—Modryb Marya—A Parable—A Carol—Love
of Children—Angels—A Sermon, “Here am I”.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.3 0.7
<sc>The</sc> condition of the Church in the diocese of
Exeter at the time when John Wesley appeared
was piteous in the extreme. Non-residence
was the rule: the services of the sanctuary
were performed in the most slovenly manner, the
sacraments were administered rarely and without due
reverence in too many places, and pastoral visitation
was neglected. The same state of things continued,
only slightly improved, to the time when Mr. Hawker
began his ministrations at Morwenstow.

There was a story told of a fox-hunting parson, Mr.
Radford, in the north of Devon, when I was a boy.
He was fond of having convivial evenings in his parsonage,
which often ended uproariously.

Bishop Phillpotts sent for him, and said: “Mr.
Radford, I hear, but I can hardly believe it, that men
fight in your house.”

“Lor’, my dear,” answered Parson Radford, in
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
broad Devonshire, “doant’y believe it. When they
begin fighting, I take and turn them out into the
churchyard.”

The Bishop of Exeter came one day to visit him
without notice. Parson Radford, in scarlet, was just
about to mount his horse and gallop off to the meet,
when he heard that the bishop was in the village.
He had barely time to send away his hunter, run
upstairs, and jump, red coat and boots, into bed, when
the bishop’s carriage drew up at the door.

“Tell his lordship I’m ill, will ye?” was his
injunction to his housekeeper, as he flew to bed.

“Is Mr. Radford in?” asked Dr. Phillpotts.

“He’s ill in bed,” said the housekeeper.

“Dear me! I am so sorry! Pray ask if I may
come up and sit with him,” said the bishop.

The housekeeper ran upstairs in sore dismay, and
entered Parson Radford’s room. The parson stealthily
put his head out of the bedclothes, but was
reassured when he saw his room was invaded by his
housekeeper, and not by the bishop.

“Please, your honour, his lordship wants to come
upstairs, and sit with you a little.”

“With me, good heavens!” gasped Parson Radford.
“No. Go down and tell his lordship I’m took cruel
bad with <i>scarlet fever</i>: it is an aggravated case, and
very catching.”

In the neighbourhood of Morwenstow, a little before
Mr. Hawker’s time, was a certain Parson Winterton.[#*:pseudo#]
He was rector of Eastcote, rector of Eigncombe, rector
of Marwood, rector of Westcote, and vicar of Barton.
Mr. Hawker used to tell the following story:—
.bn 177.png
.pn +1

When Parson Winterton lay on his death-bed, he
was visited and prepared for dying by a neighbouring
clergyman.

“What account can you render for the talents
committed to your charge? What use have you
made of them?” asked the visitor.

“Use of my talents?” repeated the dying man.
And then, thrusting his hands out from under the
bedclothes, he said: “I came into this diocese with
nothing—yes, with nothing—and now,” and he
began to check off the names on the fingers of the
left hand with the forefinger of the right hand, “I
am rector of Eigncombe, worth £80; rector of
Marwood, worth £450; rector of Westcote, worth
£560; vicar of Barton, worth £300; and rector of
Eastcote, worth a £1000. If that is not making use
of one’s talents, I do not know what is. I think I
can die in peace.”

Morwenstow, as has been already said, had been
without a resident vicar for a century before Mr.
Hawker came there. When he arrived, it was with
his great heart overflowing with love, and burning to
do good to the souls and bodies of his people. He
was about the parish all day on his pony, visiting
every one of his flock, taking vehement interest in
all their concerns, and doing everything he could
think of to win their hearts.

But two centuries of neglect by the Church was
not to be remedied in a generation. Mr. Hawker was
surprised that he could not do it in a twelvemonth.
He was met with coldness and hostility by most of
the farmers, who were, with one or two exceptions,
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
Wesleyans or Bible Christians. The autocrat of the
neighbourhood was an agent for the principal landowner
of the district, and he held the people under
his thumb. With him the vicar speedily quarrelled:
their characters were as opposed as the poles, and it
was impossible that they could work together. Mr.
Hawker thought—rightly or wrongly, who shall
decide?—that this man thwarted him at every turn,
and urged on the farmers to oppose and upset all
his schemes for benefiting the parish, spiritually and
temporally. Mutual antipathy caused recriminations,
and the hostility became open. The agent thought
he had dealt the vicar a severe blow when he persuaded
Sir J. Buller to claim St. John’s Well. Mr. Hawker
found himself baffled by the coldness of the Dissenters,
and the hostility of the agent, which he had probably
brought upon himself; and it struck a chill to his
heart, and saddened it.

The vicar was, however, not blameless in the matter.
He expected all opposition to melt away before his
will; and if a parishioner, or any one else with whom
he had dealings, did not prove malleable, and submit
to be turned in his hands like a piece of wax, he had
no patience with him. He could not argue, but he
could make assertions with the force and vehemence
which tell with some people as arguments.

The warmth with which Mr. Hawker took up the
cause of the labourers, his denunciation of the truck system,
and the forcible way in which he protested
against the lowness of the wage paid the men, conduced,
no doubt, to set the farmers against him. But
he was the idol of the workmen. Their admiration
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
and respect for him knew no bounds. “If all gentlemen
were like our vicar,” was the common saying,
“the world would have no wrongs in it.”

When Mr. Hawker’s noble face was clouded with
trouble, as he talked over the way in which he had
been thwarted at every turn by the agent and the
farmers, if a word were said about the poor, the clouds
cleared from his brow, his face brightened at once:
“‘The poor have ye always with you,’ said our Lord,
and the word is true—is true.”

In a letter written in 1864 to a former curate of
Wellcombe, now an incumbent in Essex, he says:—

.pm letter-start
The only parish of which I can report favourably is my own
cure of Wellcombe. Morwenstow is, as it always was, Wesleyan
to the backbone; but at Wellcombe the church attendance is
remarkable. The same people are faithful and constant as
worshippers, and the communicants from two hundred and four
souls are fourteen. When any neighbouring clergyman has
officiated for me, he is struck with the number and conduct of
the congregation. The rector of Kilkhampton often declares
Wellcombe to be the wonder of the district. This is to me a great
compensation for the unkindly Church feeling of Morwenstow.
.pm letter-end

The opposition of the Wesleyans and Bryanites
caused much bitterness, and he could not speak with
justice and charity of John Wesley. He knew
nothing of the greatness, holiness and zeal of that
zealous man: he did not consider how dead the
Church was when he appeared and preached to the
people. When he was reproached for his harsh
speeches about Wesley, his ready answer was: “I
judge of him by the deeds of his followers.”

One of his sayings was: “John Wesley came into
Cornwall and persuaded the people to change their
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
vices.” Once, when the real greatness of Wesley
was being pressed upon him, he said sharply: “Tell
me about Wesley when you can give me his present
address.”

If this vehement prejudice seems unjust and
unchristian, it must be remembered that Mr. Hawker
had met with great provocation. But it was not this
provocation which angered him against Methodists
and Bryanites, for he was a man of large though
capricious charity: that which cut him to the quick
was the sense that Cornish Methodism was demoralising
the people. Wesleyanism was not so much
to blame as Bryanism.

The Cornish Bryanites profess entire freedom from
obligation to keep the law, and the complete emancipation
from irksome moral restraint of those who are
children of God, made so by free grace and a saving
faith. One of their preachers was a man of unblushingly
profligate life: the details of his career will not
bear relation. Mr. Hawker used to mention some
scandalous acts of his to his co-religionists, but always
received the cool reply: “Ah! maybe; but after all
he is a <i>sweet Christian</i>.”

A favourite performance in a Bryanite meeting,
according to popular report, is to “hunt the Devil
out.” The preacher having worked the people up
into a great state of excitement, they are provided
with sticks, and the lights are extinguished. A
general <i>mêlée</i> ensues. Every one who hits thinks he
is dealing the Devil his death-blow; and every one
who receives a blow believes it is a butt from the
Devil’s horns.
.bn 181.png
.pn +1

Mr. Hawker had a capital story of one of these
meetings.

The preacher had excited the people to a wild
condition by assuring them he saw the Devil in person—there!
there! there!

“Where, where is he?” screamed some of the
people.

“Shall I hit ’un down with my umbrella?” asked
a farmer.

“He’ll burn a great hole in it if ye do,” said his
wife; “and I reck’n he won’t find you another.”

Sticks were flourished, and all rushed yelling from
their pews.

“Where is he? Let us catch a glimpse of the end
of his tail, and we’ll pin him.”

The shouting and the uproar became great.

“I see ’un, I see ’un!” shouted the preacher; and,
pointing to the door, he yelled, “He is there!”

At that very moment the door of the Bryanite
meeting-house was thrown open and there stood
R——, the dreaded steward of Lord ——, with his
grey mare. He had been riding by, and astonished
at the noise, had dismounted and opened the door to
learn what had occasioned it.

I give the account of a private Bible Christian
meeting from the narrative of an old Cornish woman
of Kilkhampton.

“Some thirty or more years agone, Long Bill
Martin was converted and became a very serious
character in Kilkhampton; and a great change that
was for Bill. Prayer-meetings were now his delight,
especially if young women were present—then he
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
did warm up, I tell’y. He could preach, he could,
just a word or two at a time; and then, when he
couldn’t find words, he’d roar. He was a mighty
comfortin’ preacher, too, especially to the maidens.
Many was the prayer-meeting which he kept alive;
and if things was going flat—for gospel ministers du
go flat sometimes, tell’y, just like ginger-beer bottles
if the cork’s out tu often. And, let me tell’y, talkin’
of that, there comed a Harchdeacon here one day: I
seed ’un, and he had strings tied about his hat, just
as they du corks of lemonade, to keep the spirit in
him down; he was nat’rally very uppish, I reck’n.
But to go back to Bill. When he couldn’t speak,
why, then he’d howl, like no sucking dove: ‘Ugh! the
devil! drive the devil!’ Yu could hear him hunting
the devil of nights a hundred yards or more off from
the cottage where he was leading prayer. One day
he settled to have a meeting down near the end of
the village and sent in next door to borrow a form
(not a form of prayer, yu know, for he didn’t hold to
that), and invited the neighbours to join. ‘You’d
better come. We’m goin’ to have a smart meetin’
t’night, can tell’y.’

“So us went in, and they set to to pray: fust won
and then another was called upon to pray. ’sister,
you pray.’ ‘Brother Rhicher (Richard), you pray.’
So to last Rhicher Davey he beginned: ‘My old
woman,’ sez he, ’she’s hoffal bad in her temper, and
han’t got no saving grace in her, not so much as ye
might put on the tail of a flea,’ sez he; ‘but we
hopps for better things, and I prays for improvement,’
he went on; ‘and if improvement don’t come to her,
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
why, improvement might come to me, by her bein’
taken where the wicked cease from troubling, and
so leave weary me at rest.’ Then I began to laugh;
but Long Bill he ketched me up and roared, ‘Pray
like blazes, Nanny Gilbert, do’y!’ So I kep my
eye fixed to her, and luked at her hard and steadfast,
I did, for I knew what the latter hupshot would be
with her; and her beginned, ‘We worms of hearth!’
and there her ended. So we waited a bit; and then
Bill Martin says, ’squeedge it hout, Nanny, squeedge
it hout!’ But it were all no good. Never another
word could she utter, though I saw she was as red
as a beet-root with tryin’ to pray. She groaned, but
no words. Then out comed old Bill—Long Bill us
called ’un, but Bill Martin was his rightful name—‘Let
us pray, my friends,’ he sez. ‘Honly believe,’
he sez. ‘Drive the devil,’ he roars. ‘There he is!
There he is!’ he sez. ‘Do’y not see ’un! Do’y not
smell ’un?’—‘It’s the cabbidge,’ sez Nanny Gilbert;
‘there’s some, and turnips tu, and a bit of bacon, biling
in the pot over the turves.’ For her was a little put
out at not being able to pray. It was her cottage in
which the prayer-meeting was being held, yu know.
Well, Long Bill didn’t stomach the cabbidge, so he
roars louder than afore, ‘<sc>Faith!</sc> my friends; have
<i>faith!</i> and then yu can see and smell the devil.’—‘If
it’s the cabbidge yu mean,’ sez Nanny, ‘I can smell
’un by my nat’ral faculties.’—‘There’s the devil!’
shouts Bill Martin, growing excited. ‘Ugh! drive
the hold devil! Faith! my friends, have faith, hellshaking
faith, conquering faith, devil-driving faith,
a damned lot of faith!’ And then he roars, ‘There
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
he is! I can zee ’un afluttering hover your heads,
ye sinners, just like my hands afluttering over the
cann’l!’

“So I titched her as was next me, and I sez:
‘Where is ’un? I doan’t see ’un, d’yu?’—‘Yer
han’t got faith,’ sez she. ‘But I can feel ’un just as
if he was acrigglin’ and acrawlin’ in my head where
the partin’ is.’

“Well, just then—and I am sure I can’t tell yu
whether it happened afore Bill Martin speaked, or
after—but he roars out, ‘I see ’un! he’s flown up
the chimley!’ And just then—as I sed, I cannot
say whether it was afore he speaked or after—down
came a pailful of soot right into the midst of old
Nanny’s pot of cabbage and turnips.

“Well, I tell’y, when old Nanny Gilbert seed that,
her was as mad as Parson Hawker during a wreck.
She ups off her chair and runs first to the pot and
looks what’s done there; and then she flies to Bill
Martin—Long Bill, yu know—and ketches him by
the ear and drags him forward to the pot and sez,
flaming like a bit of fuzz, ‘Yer let the devil loose
out of your own breast and sent ’um flittering up my
chimley, the wiper! and he’s smutted all my supper,
as was biling for me and my old man and the childer.
And I’ll tell’y what, if yu don’t bring your devil down
by his tail, that I may rub his nose in it, I’ll dip yours,
I will.’

“Well, yu may believe me, Bill tremmled as a
blank-mange—that’s a sort of jelly stuff I seed one
day in a gentleman’s house to Bude, when the servant
was carrying it in to dinner; it shooked all hover
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
like. For I tell’y, a woman as has had her biling of
cabbage and turnips spoiled, especial if there be a
taste of bacon in it, ain’t to be preached peaceable.

“After that I can’t tell’y ’xactly what took place.
We wimin set up screaming and scuffled about like
bats in the light. But I seed Nanny giving Long
Bill a sort of a chuck with one hand where his coat-tails
would have grown, only he didn’t wear a coat,
only a jacket. P’raps, though, yu know, he’d nibbled
’em off like the monkey as Parson Davies keeped in
the stable for his childer. That monkey had the
beautifullest tail—after a peacock—when first he
came to Kilkhampton; but he bit it off in little portions.
And then, poor thing, at last he got himself
into a sort of tangle or slip-knot in twisting himself
about to bite right off the last fag-end of stump.
And when Ezekiel—that’s the groom—comed in of
the morning with his bread and milk, the poor beast
stretched his head out with a jerk to get his meat
and forgot he had knotted himself up with his own
body, and so got strangled in himself. Well, but I
was telling yu about Bill Martin and not Parson
Davies’s monkey. So after that meetin’ his nose was
a queer sort of mixture of scald-red and black. He
was never very partial to water, was Bill: and so the
scald and smut stuck there, maybe one year, maybe
two. But all this happened so long ago that I
couldn’t take my Bible oath that it wasn’t more—say
three, then: odd numbers is lucky.”

Mr. Hawker had a story of a Wellcombe woman
whom he visited after the loss of her husband.
.bn 186.png
.pn +1

“Ah! thank the Lord,” said she, “my old man is
safe in Beelzebub’s bosom.”

“Abraham’s bosom, my good woman,” said the
vicar.

“Ah! I dare say. I am not acquainted with the
quality, and so don’t rightly know their names.”

While on the subject of the Devil, I cannot omit a
story told of a certain close-fisted Cornish man, whom
we will call Mr. Pengelly, as he is still alive. The
story lost nothing in the vicar’s mouth.

Mr. Pengelly was very ill and like to die. So one
night the Devil came to the side of his bed, and said
to him: “Mr. Pengelly, I will trouble yu, if you
please.”

“Yu will trouble me with what, your honour?”
says Mr. Pengelly, sitting up in bed.

“Why, just to step along of me, sir,” says the Devil.

“Oh! but I don’t please at all,” replies Mr. Pengelly,
lying down again and tucking his pillow under
his cheek.

“Well, sir, but time’s up, yu know,” was the
remark the Devil made thereupon; “and whether
it pleases yu or no, yu must come along of me to
once, sir. It isn’t much of a distance to speak of
from Morwenstow,” says he by way of apology.

“If I must go, sir,” says Mr. Pengelly, wiping his
nose with his blue pocket-handkerchief covered with
white spots, and R. P. marked in the corner in red
cotton, “why, then, I suppose yu ain’t in a great
hurry. Yu’ll give me ten minutes?”

“What do’y want ten minutes for, Mr. Pengelly?”
asks the Devil.
.bn 187.png
.pn +1

“Why, sir,” says Mr. Pengelly, putting his blue
pocket-handkerchief over his face, “I’m ashamed to
name it, but I shu’d like to say my prayers. Leastwise,
they couldn’t du no harm,” exclaimed he,
pulling the handkerchief off and looking out.

“They wouldn’t du yer no gude, Mr. Pengelly,”
says the Devil.

“I shu’d be more comfable in my mind, sir, if I
said ’em,” says he.

“Now, I’ll tell yu what, Mr. Pengelly,” says the
Devil after a pause, “I’d like to deal handsome by
yu. Yu’ve done me many a gude turn in your day.
I’ll let you live as long as yonder cann’l-end burns.”

“Thank’y kindly, sir,” says Mr. Pengelly. And
presently he says, for the Devil did not make signs
of departing: “Would yu be so civil as just tu step
into t’other room, sir? I’d take it civil. I can’t pray
comfably with yu here, sir.”

“I’ll oblige yu in that too,” said the Devil; and he
went out to look after Mrs. Pengelly.

No sooner was his back turned, than Mr. Pengelly
jumped out of bed, extinguished the candle-end,
clapped it in the candle-box, and put the candle-box
under his bed. Presently the Devil came in, and
said: “Now, Mr. Pengelly, yu’re all in the dark: I
see the cann’l’s burnt out, so yu must come with me.”

“I’m not so much in the dark as yu, sir,” says the
sick man, “for the cann’l’s not burnt out, and isn’t
like to. He’s safe in the cann’l-box. And I’ll send
for yu, sir, when I want yu.”

Mr. Pengelly is still alive; but let not the visitor to
his farm ask him what he keeps in his candle-box, or,
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
old man of seventy-eight though he is, he will jump
out of his chair, and lay his stick across the shoulders
of his interrogator. “They du say,” said my informant,
“that Mrs. Pengelly hev tried a score of times
to get hold of the cann’l-end, and burn it out; but
the master is tu sharp for his missus, and keeps it as
tight from her as he does from the Devil.”

Mr. Pengelly has the credit of having been only
once in his life cheated, and that was by a tramp, in
this wise:—

One day a man in tatters, and with his shoes in
fragments, came to his door, and asked for work.

“I like work,” says the man, “I love it. Try me.”

“If that’s the case,” says Mr. Pengelly, “yu may
dig my garden for me, and I will give yu one shilling
and twopence a day.” Wages were then eighteen
pence, or one and eightpence.

“Done,” said the man.

So he was given a spade, and he worked capitally.
Mr. Pengelly watched him from his windows, from
behind a wall, and the man never left off work except
to spit on his hands; that was his only relaxation,
and he did not do that over-often.

Mr. Pengelly was mighty pleased with his workman;
he sent him to sleep in the barn, and paid him
his day’s wage that he might buy himself a bit of bread.

Next morning Mr. Pengelly was up with the lark.
But the workman was up before Mr. Pengelly or the
lark either, and was digging diligently in the garden.

Mr. Pengelly was more and more pleased with his
man. He went to him during the morning; then
the fellow stuck his spade into the ground, and said:
.bn 189.png
.pn +1

“I’ll tell yu what it is, sir, I like work! I love it!
but I cannot dig without butes or shoes. Yu may
look: I’ve no soles to my feet, and the spade nigh
cuts through them.”

“Yu must get a pair of shoes,” said Mr. Pengelly.

“That’s just it,” says the man; “but no boot-maker
will trust me; and I cannot pay down, for I
haven’t the money, sir.”

“What would a pair of shoes cost, now?” asks
his employer, looking at the man’s feet wholly devoid
of leather soles.

“Fefteen shilling, maybe,” says he.

“Fefteen shilling!” exclaims Mr. Pengelly; “yu’ll
never get that to pay him.”

“Then I must go to some other farmer who’ll
advance me the money,” says the man.

“Now don’t’y be in no hurry,” says Mr. Pengelly,
in a fright lest he should lose a man worth half a
crown a day by his work. “Suppose I were to let’y
have five shilling. Then yu might go to Stratton,
and pay that, and in five days you would have worked
it out, keeping twopence a day for your meat; and
that will do nicely if yu’re not dainty. Then I would
let’y have another five shilling, till yu’d paid up.”

“Done,” says the man.

So Mr. Pengelly pulled the five shillings out, in
two half-crown pieces, and gave them to the man.

Directly he had the money in his hand, the fellow
drove the spade into the ground, and, making for the
gate, took off his hat and said: “I wish yu a gude
morning, Mr. Pengelly, and many thanks for the
crown. Now I’m off to Taunton like a long dog.”
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
And like a long dog (greyhound) he went off, and Mr.
Pengelly never saw him or his two half-crowns again.
So the man who cheated the Devil was cheated by a
tramp: that shows how clever tramps are.

But to return to the vicar of Morwenstow, and the
Dissenters in his parish. Although very bitter in
speech against Dissent, he was ready to do any kindness
that lay in his power to a Dissenter. He took
pains to instruct in Latin and Greek a young Methodist
preparing for the Wesleyan ministry, and read
with him diligently out of free good-nature. His
pupil is now, I believe, a somewhat distinguished
preacher in his connection. He was always ready to
ask favours of their landlords for Dissenting farmers,
and went out of his way to do them exceptional
kindnesses.

Some one rallied him with this:—

“Why, Hawker, you are always getting comfortable
berths for schismatics.”

“So one ought,” was his ready reply. “I try my
best to make them snug in this world, they will be so
uncommonly miserable in the next.”

He delighted in seeing persons of the most opposed
religious or political views meet at his table. A
Roman Catholic, an Independent minister, a Nothingarian
and a High Anglican, were once lunching
with him.

“What an extraordinary thing, that you should
have such discordant elements unite harmoniously at
your table!” said a friend.

“Clean and unclean beasts feeding together in the
ark,” was his reply.
.bn 191.png
.pn +1

“But how odd that you should get them to meet!”

“Well, I thought it best: they never will meet in
the next world.”

One day he visited the widow of a parishioner who
was dead. As he entered, he met the Methodist
preacher coming out of the room where the corpse
lay.

“When is poor Thomas to be buried?” asked the
vicar.

“We are going to take him out of the parish,”
answered the widow; “we thought you would not
bury him, as he was a Dissenter.”

“Who told you that I would not?”

The widow lady looked at the Nonconformist
minister.

“Did you say so?” he asked of the preacher
abruptly.

“Well, sir, we thought, as you were so mighty
particular, you would object to bury a Dissenter.”

“On the contrary,” said the vicar, “do you not
know that I should be but too happy to bury you
all?”

He was highly incensed at Mr. Cowper Temple’s
abortive proposal for admitting Dissenters to the
pulpits of the Church. “What!” said he in wrath,
“suffer a Dissenting minister to invade our sacred
precincts, to draw near to our pulpits and altars!
It is contrary to Scripture; for Scripture says: ‘If
a beast do but touch the mountain, let him be
stoned or thrust through with a dart.’”

As an instance of despotic conduct towards a
parishioner, it would be difficult to match the following
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
incident: A wealthy yeoman of Morwenstow, Mr.
B——, was the owner of a tall pew, which stood like
a huge sentry-box, in the nave of the church. Most
of the other pew-owners had consented to the removal
of the doors, curtains and panelling which they had
erected upon or in place of their old family seats to
hide themselves from the vulgar gaze; but no persuasion
of the vicar had any effect upon the stubborn
Mr. B——. The pew had been constructed and furnished
with a view to comfort; and, like the famous
Derbyshire farmer, Mr. B—— could “vould his arms,
shut his eyes, dra’ out his legs and think upon
nothin’” therein, unnoticed by any one but the parson.
Moreover, Mr. B—— had, it was said, a faculty-right
to the hideous enclosure. He was therefore
invulnerable to all the coaxing, reasoning, threatening
and preaching which could be brought to bear upon
him. Weeks after all the other pews had been swept
away, he intrenched himself in his ecclesiastical fortress,
and looked defiance at the outside world. At
last the vicar resolved to storm the enemy, and gave
him due notice, that, on a certain day and hour, it was
his intention to demolish the pew. Mr. B—— was
present at the appointed time to defend his property,
but was so taken aback at the sight of the vicar entering
the church armed with a large axe, that he stood
dumfounded with amazement, whilst, without uttering
a word, the vicar strode up to the pew, and with
a few lusty blows literally smashed it to pieces, and
then flung the fragments outside the church door.
To the credit of Mr. B——, he still continued to
attend church; but he took on one occasion an un-seasonable
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
opportunity of rebuking the vicar for his
violence. It was on the parish feast day, or “revel”
as the inhabitants of the parish called it; and, as was
his wont, the vicar was expatiating in the pulpit on
the antiquity of the church, and how the shrine of
St. Morwenna had been preserved unchanged whilst
dynasties had perished and empires had been overthrown.
Whereupon Mr. B—— exclaimed in a voice
of thunder, “No such thing: you knacked down my
pew!” The vicar, however, was still more than a
match for him. Without the least embarrassment,
he turned from St. Morwenna to the parable of the
rich man and Lazarus, and, in describing the life and
character of Dives, drew such a vivid portrait of Mr.
B——, that the poor man rushed out of church when
the preacher began to consign him to his place of
torment.

The impression was strong upon him, that he and
the Church were under special Divine protection, and
he would insist that no misfortune ever befel his cows
or sheep. When, however, after some years he was
unlucky, he looked on every stroke of misfortune as
an assault of Satan himself, allowed to try him as he
had tried Job.

This belief that he had, of a special Providence
watching over him, must explain the somewhat painful
feature of his looking out for the ruin of those
who wrought evil against the Church. He bore them
no malice; but he looked upon such wrongs done as
done to God, and as sure to be avenged by Him.
He had always a text at hand to support his view.
“I have no personal enemies,” he would say, “but
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
Uzziah cannot put his hand to the ark without the
Lord making a breach upon him.”

His conviction that the Church was God’s kingdom
was never shaken. “No weapon formed against thee
shall prosper,” he said; “that was a promise made
by God to the Church, and God does not forget His
promises. Why, I have <i>seen</i> His promise kept again
and again. I know that God is no liar.”

“But look at the hostility to the Church in Mr.
M——, what efforts he has made in Parliament, and
throughout the country, agitating men’s minds, and
all for the purpose of overthrowing the Church. He
prospers.”

“My friend,” said the vicar, pausing, and laying
his hand solemnly on his companion’s arm, “God
does not always pay wages on Saturday night.”

When an attempt was made in 1843 to wrest the
Well of St. John from him, he went thrice a day,
every day during that Lent, whilst the case was being
tried, till 27th March, and offered up before the altar
the following prayer:—

.pm letter-start
Almighty and most merciful God! the Protector of all
that trust in Thee! We most humbly beseech Thee that Thou
wouldest be pleased to stretch forth Thy right hand to rescue
and defend the possessions of this Thy sanctuary from the envy
and violence of wicked and covetous men. Let not an adversary
despoil Thine inheritance, neither suffer Thou the evil man
to approach the waters that flow softly for Thy blessed baptism,
from the well of Thy servant St. John.

And, O Almighty Lord, even as Thou didst avenge the cause
of Naboth the Jezreelite, upon angry Ahab and Jezebel his
wife; and as Thou didst strengthen the hands of Thy blessed
apostle St. Peter, insomuch that Ananias and Sapphira could
not escape just judgment when they sought to keep back a part
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
of the possession from Thy Church; even so now, O Lord God,
shield and succour the heritage of Thy holy shrine! Show some
token upon us for good, that they who see it may say, “This
hath God done”. Be Thou our hope and fortress, O Lord, our
castle and deliverer, as in the days of old, such as our fathers
have told us. Show forth Thy strength unto this generation, and
Thy power unto them that are yet for to come. So shall we daily
perform our vows, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
.pm letter-end

The attempt to deprive him of the Well of St. John
signally failed.

.pm verse-start
They dreamed not in old Hebron, when the sound
  Went through the city, that the promised son
  Was born to Zachary, and his name was John,—
They little thought that here, in this far ground
  Beside the Severn Sea, that Hebrew child
  Would be a cherished memory of the wild!—
Here, where the pulses of the ocean bound
  Whole centuries away, while one meek cell,
  Built by the fathers o’er a lonely well,
Still breathes the Baptist’s sweet remembrance round.
  A spring of silent waters with his name,
  That from the angel’s voice in music came,
Here in the wilderness so faithful found,
It freshens to this day the Levite’s grassy mound.
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Sept. 20, 1850. <i>My dear Mrs. M</i>——,— ...
I have but a sullen prospect of winter tide. I had longed
to go on with another window. But my fate, which in matters
of <i>l.</i> <i>s.</i> <i>d.</i> is always mournful, paralyses my will. A west window
in my tower is offered me by Warrington for the cost of
carriage and putting together. But—but—but. Fifteen years
I have been vicar of this altar; and all that while no lay person,
landlord, tenant, parishioner or steward, has ever proffered me
even one kind word, much less aid or coin. Nay, I have found
them all bristling with dislike. All the great men have been
hostile to me in word or deed. Yet I thank my Master and
His angels, I have accomplished in and around my church a
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
thousand times more than the great befriended clergy of this
deanery. Not one thing has failed. When I lack aid to fulfil,
I go to the altar and ask it. Is it conceded? So fearfully that
I shudder with thanksgiving. A person threatened me with
injury on a fixed day. I besought rescue. On that very day
that person died. A false and treacherous clergyman came to
a parish close by. I shook with dread. I asked help. It came.
He entered my house five days afterwards to announce some
malady unaccountable to him. He went. It grew. He resigned
his cure last week.

And these are two only out of forty miracles.
.ti 10
Yours faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end

It is painful to record this side of the vicar’s character;
but without it this would be but an imperfect
sketch. He was, it must be borne in mind, an
anachronism. He did not belong to this century or
this country. His mind and character pertained to
the Middle Ages and to the East.

He is not to be measured by any standard used for
men of our times.

.sp 1
.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, July 24, 1857. <i>My dear Mrs. M——</i>,—All
my pets are dead, and I cannot endure my lonely lawn. I want
some ewe lamb, “to be unto me a daughter.” T—— is a parish
famous for sheep: are there any true Church farmers among
the sheep-masters, to whom, with Dr. C——’s introduction, I
could write, in order to obtain the animals I seek? I want to
find a man, or men, who would deal honestly and sincerely by
me, and in whom I could trust. Will you ask your father if he
would have the kindness to instruct me hereon? I want soft-eyed,
well-bred sheep, the animal which was moulded in the
mind of God the Trinity, to typify the Lamb of Calvary.
.ti 10
Yours always,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
He had the greatest objection to hysterical religion.
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
“Conversion,” he said, “is a spasm of the ganglions.”
“Free justification,” was another of his
sayings, “is a bankrupt’s certificate, whitewashing
him, and licensing him to swindle and thieve again.”

“There was a young Wesleyan woman at Shop”
(this is one of his stories) “who was ill; and her
aunt, a trusty old Churchwoman, was nursing her.
The sick woman’s breast was somewhat agitated, and
rumblings therein were audible. ‘Aunt,’ said she,
‘do you hear and see? There is the clear witness
of the Spirit speaking within!’—‘Lor’, my dear,’
answered the old woman, ‘it’s not that: you can
get the better of it with three drops of peppermint
on a bit of loaf-sugar.’”

On the occasion of a noisy revival in the parish,
he wrote the following verses, to describe what he
believed to be the true signs of spiritual conversion—very
different from the screeching and hysterics of
the revival which had taken place among his own
people, the sad moral effect of which on the young
women he learned by experience.

.pm verse-start
When the voice of God is thrilling,
                Breathe not a sound;
When the tearful eye is filling,
                Breathe not a sound;
When the memory is pleading,
And the better mind succeeding,
When the stricken heart is bleeding,
                Breathe not a sound.

When the broad road is forsaken,
                Breathe not a sound;
And the narrow path is taken,
                Breathe not a sound;
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
When the angels are descending,
And the days of sin are ending,
When heaven and earth are blending,
                Breathe not a sound.
.pm verse-end

A Dissenter at Bude considered this sentiment so
unsuited to evangelical religion, and so suitable for
the dumb dogs of the Established Church, that he
had it printed on a card, and distributed it among his
co-religionists, in scorn, with a note of derision of his
own appended.

Mr. Hawker was walking one day on the cliffs near
Morwenstow, with the Rev. W. Vincent,[#*:pseudo#] when a
gust of wind took off Mr. Vincent’s hat, and carried
it over the cliff.

Within a week or two a Methodist preacher at
Truro was discoursing on prayer, and in his sermon
he said: “I would not have you, dear brethren, confine
your supplications to spiritual blessings, but ask
also for temporal favours. I will illustrate my meaning
by narrating an incident, a fact, that happened to
myself ten days ago. I was on the shore of a cove
near a little, insignificant place in North Cornwall,
named Morwenstow, and about to proceed to Bude.
Shall I add, my Christian friends, that I had on my
head at the time a shocking bad hat, and that I somewhat
blushed to think of entering that harbour, town
and watering-place, so ill-adorned as to my head?
Then I lifted up my prayer to the Almighty, that He
would pluck me out of the great strait in which I
found myself, and clothe me suitably as to my head;
for He painteth the petals of the polyanthus, and
colours the calyx of the coreopsis. At that solemn
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
moment I raised my eyes to heaven; and I saw, in
the spacious firmament on high, the blue, ethereal
sky, a black spot. It approached, it largened, it
widened, it fell at my feet. It was a brand-new hat,
by a distinguished London maker. I cast my
battered beaver to the waves, and walked into Bude
as fast as I could, with the new hat on my head.”

The incident got into <i>The Methodist Reporter</i>, or
some such Wesleyan publication, under the heading
of “Remarkable Answer to Prayer.” “And,” said the
vicar, “the rascal made off with Vincent’s new hat
from Bennett’s; there was no reaching him, for we
were on the cliff, and could not descend the precipice.
He was deaf enough, I promise you, to our shouts.”

That Mr. Hawker was appreciated by some, the
following note received by me will show:—
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
Nov. 16, 1875. In the spring of this year, and consequently
before there could have been any idea of “De mortuis,” etc., I
happened to find myself in company with two Morwenstow people,
returning to their old home. One of them was a prosperous-looking
clerk or shopman from Manchester, the other a nice,
modest-looking servant girl. On recognising each other, which
they did not do at once, their talk naturally turned to old days.
The Sunday School, Morwenstow and its vicar were discussed; and
it was very remarkable to see how lively was their remembrance of
him, how much affection and reverence they entertained for him,
how keen was their appreciation of the great qualities of his
head and heart, and how much delight they testified in being able
to see his honoured face and white head, and hear the
well-remembered tones of his voice once more. It may seem but a
trivial incident; but to those who know how constant is the
complaint, and, indeed, how well founded, that our children, when
they leave school, leave us altogether, such attestation to his
work and influence is not without its value. I remain, etc.,
.ti 10
W. C——.
.pm letter-end
.bn 200.png
.pn +1

“Talking of <i>appreciation</i>,” as Mr. Hawker said
once, “the Scripture-reader, Mr. Bumpus,[#*:pseudo#] at ——,
came to me the other day, and said: ‘Please, sir,
I have been visiting and advising Farmer Matthews,
but he did not quite appreciate me. In fact, he
kicked me downstairs.’”

Mr. Hawker could not endure to hear the apostles
or evangelists spoken of by name without their proper
prefix or title of “Saint.” If he heard any one talk
of Mark, or John, or Paul, he would say: “Look here.
There was a professor at Oxford in my time who
lectured on divinity. One day a pert student began
to speak about ‘Paul’s opinion.’ ‘Paul’s opinion,
sir!’ said the professor. ‘Paul is not here to speak
for himself; but if Paul were, and heard you talk
thus disrespectfully of him, it is my belief that Paul
would take you by the scruff of your neck and chuck
you out of the window. As I have Paul in honour, if
I hear you speak of him disrespectfully again, I will
kick you from the room.’”

“Never boast,” was a favourite saying of the vicar’s.
“The moment you boast, the Devil obtains power over
you. You notice if it be not so. You say, ‘I now
never catch cold,’ and within a week you have a sore
throat. ‘I am always lucky in my money ventures’;
and the next fails. So long as you do not boast, the
Devil cannot touch you; but, the moment you have
boasted, virtue has gone from you, and he obtains
power. Nebuchadnezzar was prosperous till he said,
‘Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the
house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and
for the honour of my majesty?’ It was while the
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
word was in the king’s mouth that the voice fell
from heaven which took it from him.”

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Jan. 2, 1850. <i>My dear Mrs. M——</i>,—I
know not when I have been more shocked than by the sudden
announcement of the death of good Bishop Coleridge. For
good he verily and really was. What a word that is, “suddenly”!
The Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and,
behold, there were horses and chariots of fire round about
Elisha. May God grant us Sir T. More’s prayer, “that we
may all meet and be merry in heaven”! ... I am to do something
again for the new series of <i>Tracts for the Christian
Seasons</i>. Did you detect my “Magian Star” and “Nain, the
lovely city”?

I hope to hear from you what is going on in the out-world.
Here within the ark we hear only the voices of animals and
birds, and the sound of many waters. “The Lord shut him in.”
Give my real love to P——, and say I will write her soon a
letter, with a psalm about “her dear Aunt Mary.”
.ti 10
Yours faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
The psalm came in due time with this introduction:—
.sp 2
.nf c
<xl>MODRYB MARYA: AUNT MARY.</xl>

A CHRISTMAS CHANT.
.nf-
.pm letter-start
[In old and simple-hearted Cornwall, the household names “uncle”
and “aunt” were uttered and used as they are to this day in many
countries of the East, not only as phrases of kindred, but as
words of kindly greeting and tender respect. It was in the
spirit, therefore, of this touching and graphic usage, that they
were wont, on the Tamar side, to call the Mother of God, in their
loyal language, Modryb Marya, or Aunt Mary.]
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway,
  Which do you love the best?
Oh! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,
  The bush with the bleeding breast!
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
Now, the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;
For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree!

Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s name,
  ’Tis a plant that loves the poor:
Summer and winter it shines the same,
  Beside the cottage door.
Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;
For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree!

’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave,
  They sing in it all day long;
But, sweetest of all, upon Christmas Eve,
  Is to hear the robin’s song.
’Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea,
For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree!

So, of all that grow by the king’s highway,
  I love that tree the best:
’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day,
  The bush of the bleeding breast.
Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;
For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree!
.pm verse-end

The following was sent to the same young girl,
P—— M——:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, February, 1853. <i>Dear P——</i>,—I have
copied a little parable-story for you. Tell me if you can understand
it. May God bless you, my dear child, whom I love for
your father’s sake!
.ti 10
Yours faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
.nf c
<s>Natum ante omnia sæcula.</s>
.nf-
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
The first star gleamed over Nazareth, when thus the Lady
said unto her Son: “Jesu, wilt thou not arise and go with me
into the field that we may hear the sweet chime of the birds
as they chant their evening psalm?”—“Yea, Mary, mother,”
answered the awful Boy, “yea, for I love their music well.
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
I have loved it long. I listened, in My gladness, to the first-born
voices of the winged fowl, when they break forth into
melody among the trees of the Garden, or ever there was a man
to rejoice in their song. Twain, moreover, after their kind, the
eagle and the dove, did My Father and I create, to be the token-birds
of our Spirit, when He should go forth from us to thrill
the world of time.”
.pm letter-end

His theory was that the eagle symbolised the Holy
Ghost in His operation under the old covenant, and
the dove His work in the Church. The double-headed
eagle, so often found in mediæval churches—and
there is one carved on a boss at Morwenstow—he
thought represented the twofold effusion of the
Spirit in two dispensations.

The following “Carol of the Kings” was written
during the Epiphany of 1859, and published with the
signature “Nectan” in a Plymouth paper:—
.sp 2
.nf c
<l>A CAROL OF THE KINGS.</l>
.nf-
.pm letter-start
[It is chronicled in an old Armenian myth[#] that the wise men of
the East were none other than the three sons of Noe, and that
they were raised from the dead to represent, and to do homage
for, all mankind in the cave at Bethlehem! Other legends are also
told: one, that these patriarch-princes of the Flood did not ever
die, but were rapt away into Enoch’s Paradise, and were thence
recalled to begin the solemn gesture of world-wide worship to the
King-born Child! Another saying holds, that, when their days were
full, these arkite fathers fell asleep, and were laid at rest in
a cavern at Ararat until Messias was born, and that then an angel
aroused them from the slumber of ages to bow down and to hail, as
the heralds of many nations, the awful Child. Be this as it
may—whether the mystic magi were Shem, Cham, and Japhet, in their
first or second existence, under their own names or those of
other men, or whether they were three long-descended and royal
sages from the loins or the land of Baalam, one thing has been
delivered to me for very record. The supernatural shape of
clustering orbs which was embodied suddenly from surrounding
light, and framed to be the beacon of
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
that westward-way, was and is the Southern Cross! It was not a
solitary signal-fire, but a miraculous constellation, a pentacle
of stars, whereof two shone for the transom and three for the
stock; and which went above and before the travellers, day and
night, radiantly, until it came and stood over where the young
Child lay! And then? What then? Must those faithful orbs dissolve
and die? Shall the gleaming trophy fall? Nay—not so. When it had
fulfilled the piety of its first-born office, it arose, and, amid
the vassalage of every stellar and material law, it moved onward
and onward, obedient to the impulse of God the Trinity,
journeying evermore towards the south, until that starry image
arrived in the predestined sphere of future and perpetual abode:
to bend, as to this day it bends, above the peaceful sea, in
everlasting memorial of the Child Jesus: the Southern Cross!]
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
How a thing can be “chronicled in a myth” is not easy to understand.
Myths not infrequently get recorded, not chronicled.—<i>S. B.-G.</i>
.pm fn-end

.pm verse-start
Three ancient men in Bethlehem’s cave
  With awful wonder stand:
A voice had called them from their grave
  In some far Eastern land.

They lived, they trod the former earth,
  When the old waters swelled:
The ark, that womb of second birth,
  Their house and lineage held.

Pale Japhet bows the knee with gold,
  Bright Shem sweet incense brings,
And Cham the myrrh his fingers hold:
  Lo! the three Orient kings!

Types of the total earth, they hailed
  The signal’s starry frame:
Shuddering with second life, they quailed
  At the Child Jesu’s name.

Then slow the patriarchs turned and trod,
  And this their parting sigh,—
“Our eyes have seen the living God,
  And now—once more to die.”
.pm verse-end

We began this chapter with stories illustrating
the harsh side of Mr. Hawker’s character. We
have slided insensibly into those which show him
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
forth in his gentler nature. There was in him the
eagle and the dove: it is pleasanter to think of the
dove-like characteristics of this grand old man.

And naturally, when we speak of him in his softer
moods, not when he is doing battle for God and the
Church, and—it must be admitted—for his own
whims, but when he is at peace and full of smiles,
we come to think of him in his relations with
children.

When his school was first opened he attended it
daily; but in after-years, as age and infirmities crept
on, his visits were only once a week.

He loved children, and they loved him. It was
his delight to take them by the hand and walk with
them about the parish, telling them stories of St.
Morwenna, St. Nectan, King Arthur, Sir Bevil Grenville,
smugglers, wreckers, pixies and hobgoblins, in
one unflagging stream. So great was the affection
borne him by the children of his parish, that when
they were ill, and had to take physic, and the
mothers could not induce them to swallow the
nauseous draught, the vicar was sent for, and the
little ones, without further struggle, swallowed the
medicine administered by his hand.

A child said to him one day: “Please, Mr. Hawker,
did you ever see an angel?”

“Margaret,” he answered solemnly, and took one
of the child’s hands in his left palm, “there came to
this door one day a poor man. He was in rags.
Whence he came I know not. He appeared quite
suddenly at the door. We gave him bread. There
was something wonderful, mysterious, unearthly, in
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
his face. And I watched him as he went away.
Look, Margaret! do you see that hill all gold and
crimson with gorse and heather? He went that
way. I saw him go up through the gold and crimson,
up, still upwards, to where the blue sky is, and
there I lost sight of him all at once. I saw him no
more; but I thought of the words, ‘Be not forgetful
to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares.’”

A good idea of his notions about angels, and their
guardianship of his church, may be gathered from a
remarkable sermon he preached a few years ago, on
St. John the Baptist’s day, in his own church. It
was heard by an old man, a builder in Kilkhampton;
and it made so deep an impression on his mind, that
he was able to repeat to me the outline of its contents,
and to give me whole passages.

His text was 1 Sam. iii. 4, “<i>Here am I!</i>”

.pm letter-start
More than a thousand years ago St. Morwenna came from
Wales, from Brecknockshire, where was her father’s palace:
she loved the things of God more than the things of men.

And then the wild Atlantic rolled against these cliffs as
now, and the gorse flamed over them as now, and the little
brook dived through fern, and foamed over the rocks to join
the sea, as now. And there were men and women where you
dwell, as now; and there were little children on their knees, as
now. But then there was no knowledge of God in the hearts
of men, as there is now. There was no church, as now; no
Word of God preached, as now; no font where the water was
sanctified by the brooding Spirit, as now; no altar where the
bread of life was broken, as now. All lay in darkness and the
shadow of death.

And God looked upon the earth, and saw the blue sea
lashing our rocks, and the gorse flaming on our hills, and the
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
brook murmuring into the sea, and men and women and children
lying in the shadow of death; and it grieved Him. Then
He called: “Who will come and plant a church in that wild
glen, and bring the light of life into this lone spot?” and Morwenna
answered with brave heart and childlike simplicity,
“Here am I!”

And Morwenna came. She built herself a cell at Chapelpiece,
where now no heather or furze or thorn will grow, for
her feet have consecrated it for evermore; and she got a gift
of land; and she built a church, and dedicated it to God the
Trinity, and St. John the Baptiser, who preached in a wilderness
such as this. And she gave the land for ever to God and
His Church; and wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached,
there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a
memorial of her.

Now a holy bishop came; and he accepted, in the name of
God, this gift off her hands, and he consecrated for ever this
church to God.

Now look you! This house is God’s. These pillars are
God’s. These windows are God’s. That door is God’s. Every
stone and beam is God’s. The grass in the churchyard, the
fern rooted in the tower, all are God’s.

And when the holy bishop dedicated all to God, and consecrated
the ground to the very centre of the earth, then he
set a priest here to minister in God’s name, to bless, baptise,
and break the holy bread, and fill the holy cup, in God’s name.

And God looked out over the earth, and He saw the building
and the land Morwenna had given to Him; and He said:
“Who will pasture My flock in this desert? Who will pour on
them the sanctifying water? Who will distribute to them the
bread of heaven?” And the priest standing here made answer,
“Here am I!”

And God said: “Who will stand by My priest, and watch
and ward My building and My land? Who will defend him
against evil men? Who will guard My house from the spoiler?
My land from those who would add field to field, till they can
say, ‘We are alone in the earth’?” And an angel answered,
“Here am I!”
.bn 208.png
.pn +1

And the angel came down to keep guard here, with flaming
sword that turneth every way, to champion the priest of God,
and to watch the sanctuary of God.

More than one thousand years have rolled away since
Morwenna gave this church to God; and since then never has
there been a day in which, when God looked forth upon the
earth, there has not been a priest standing at this altar, to say
in answer to His call, “Here am I!”

A thousand years, and more, have swept away; and in all
these ages there never has been a moment in which an angel,
leaning on his flashing sword, has not stood here as sentinel, to
answer to God’s call, when foes assail, and traitors give the
Judas kiss, and feeble hearts fail, “Here am I!”

And now, my brethren, I stand here.

Does God ask: “Who is there to baptise the children, and
bring them to Me? Who is there to instruct the young in the
paths of righteousness? Who is there to bless the young hands
that clasp for life’s journey? Who is there to speak the word
of pardon over the penitent sinner who turns with broken and
contrite heart to Me? Who is there to give the bread of heaven
to the wayfarers on life’s desert? Who is there to stand by
the sick man’s bed, and hold the cross before his closing eyes?
Who is there to lay him with words of hope in his long home?”
Why, my brethren, I look up in the face of God, and I answer
boldly, confidently, yet humbly and suppliantly, “Here am I!”

I, with all my infirmities of temper and mind and body; I,
broken by old age, but with a spirit ever willing; I, troubled on
every side, without with fightings, within with fears; I—I—strengthened,
however, by the grace of God, and commissioned
by His apostolic ministry.

And am I alone? Not so. There are chariots and horses
of fire about me. There are angels round us on every side.

You do not see them. You ask me, “Do you?”

And I answer, Yes, I do.

Am I weak? An angel stays me up. Do my hands falter?
An angel sustains them. Am I weary to death with disappointment?
My head rests on an angel’s bosom, and an angel’s
arms encircle me.
.bn 209.png
.pn +1

Who will raise his hand to tear down the house of God?
Who will venture to rob God of His inheritance? An angel is
at hand. He beareth not the sword in vain: he saith to the
assailer, “Here am I!”

And believe me: the world may roll its course through
centuries more; the ocean may fret our rocks, and he has fretted
them through ages past; but as long as one stone stands upon
another of Morwenna’s church, so long will there be a priest to
answer God’s call, and say, “Here am I!” and so long will
there be an angel to stay him up in his agony and weakness,
saying, “Here am I!” and to meet the spoiler, with his sword
and challenge, “Here am I!”[#]
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
This sermon is given approximately only. Mr. Hawker always preached
extempore. It is a restoration; and a restoration from notes can never
equal the original.
.pm fn-end
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch08
CHAPTER VIII
.pm ch-hd-start
The Vicar of Morwenstow as a Poet—His Epigrams—“The Carol of the
Pruss”—“Down with the Church”—“The Quest of the Sangreal”—Editions
of his Poems—Ballads—“The Song of the Western Men”—“The
Cornish Mother’s Lament”—“A Thought”—Churchyards.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.3 0.7
<sc>When</sc> the vicar of Morwenstow liked, he could
fire off a pungent epigram. Many of these
productions exist; but, as most of them
apply to persons or events with whom or with which
the general reader has no acquaintance, it is not
necessary to quote them. Some also are too keenly
sharpened to bear publication.

The Hon. Newton Fellowes[#] canvassed for North
Devon, at the time when the surplice controversy was
at its height, and went before the electors as the
champion of Protestantism, and “no washing of the
parson’s shirt.”
.pm fn-start
Afterwards Lord Portsmouth.
.pm fn-end

On the hustings he declared with great vehemence
that he “would never, never, never allow himself
to be priest-ridden.” Mr. Hawker heard him, and,
tearing a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote on it:—

.pm verse-start
Thou ridden ne’er shalt be, by prophet or by priest:
Balaam is dead, and none but he would choose thee for his beast!
.pm verse-end

And he slipped the paper into the hand of the excited
but not eloquent speaker.
.bn 211.png
.pn +1

He had a singular facility for writing off an epigram
on the spur of the moment. In the midst of
conversation he would pause, his hand go to the
pencil that dangled from his button-hole, and on a
scrap of paper, the fly-leaf of a book, or a margin of
newspaper, a happy, brilliant epigram was written
on some topic started in the course of conversation,
and composed almost without his pausing in his talk.

Many of his sayings were epigrammatical. On an
extremely self-conceited man leaving the room one
day, after he had caused some amusement by his
self-assertion, Mr. Hawker said: “Conceit is the
compensation afforded by benignant Nature for
mental deficiency.”

His “Carol of the Pruss,” 1st Jan., 1871, is
bitter:—

.pm verse-start
Hurrah for the boom of the thundering gun!
  Hurrah for the words they say!
“Here’s a merry Christmas for every one,
  And a happy New Year’s Day.”
Thus saith the king to the echoing ball:
“With the blessing of God we will slay them all!”

“Up!” saith the king, “load, fire and slay!”
  ’Tis a kindly signal given:
However happy on earth be they,
  They’ll be happier in heaven.
Tell them, as soon as their souls are free
They’ll sing like birds on a Christmas-tree.

Down with them all! If they rise again,
  They will munch our beef and bread:
War there must be with the living men;
  There’ll be peace when all are dead!
This earth shall be our wide, wide home:
Our foes shall have the world to come.
.bn 212.png
.pn +1

Starve, starve them all, till through the skin
  You may count each hungry bone!
Tap, tap their veins, till the blood runs thin,
  And their sinful flesh is gone!
While life is strong in the German sky,
What matters it who besides may die?

No sigh so sweet as the cannon’s breath,
  No music like to the gun!
There’s a merry Christmas to war and death,
  And a happy New Year to none.
Thus saith the king to the echoing ball:
“With the blessing of God we will slay them all!”
.pm verse-end

Sir R. Vyvyan and Sir C. Lemon were standing
for East Cornwall in the Conservative and Church
interest. The opposition party was that of the Dissenters;
and their cry was “Down with the Church!”
Thereupon Mr. Hawker wrote the lines:—

.pm verse-start
Shall the grey tower in ruin bow?
Must the babe die with nameless brow?
Or common hands in mockery fling
The unblessed waters of the spring?
No! while the Cornish voice can ring
The Vyvyan cry, “Our Church and King!”

Shall the grey tower in ruin stand
When the heart thrills within the hand,
And beauty’s lip to youth hath given
The vow on earth that links for heaven?
Shall no glad peal from church-tower grey
Cheer the young maiden’s homeward way?
No! while the Cornish voice can ring,
And Vyvyan cry, “Our Church and King!”

Shall the grey tower in ruins spread?
And must the furrow hold the dead
Without the toll of passing knell,
Without the stolèd priest to tell
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
Of Christ the first-fruits of the dead,
To wake our brother from his bed?[#]
No! while the Cornish voice can ring,
And Vyvyan cry, “Our Church and King!”
.pm verse-end

When the Irish Church was disestablished, the
vicar was highly incensed, and at the election of
1873 voted for the Conservative candidate instead of
holding fast in his allegiance to the Liberal. But
when the Public Worship Bill was taken up by Mr.
Disraeli, and carried through Parliament by the Conservative
government, his faith in the Tory prime
minister failed as wholly as it had in the leader of
the Liberal party; and he wrote the following bitter
epigram on the two prime ministers:—

.pm verse-start
An English boy was born, a Jew, and then
On the eighth day received the name of Ben.
Another boy was born, baptised, but still
In common parlance called the People’s Will!
Both lived impenitent, and so they died;
And between both the Church was crucified.
Which bore the brand, I pray thee, tell me true—
The wavering Christian, or the doubtful Jew?
.pm verse-end

There is another epigram attributed to him, but
whether rightly or not I am not in a position to
state:—

.pm verse-start
Doctor Hopwood,[#*:pseudo#] the vicar of Calstock,[#*:pseudo#] is dead;
But, <i>De mortuis nil nisi bonum</i>, is said.
Let this maxim be strictly regarded, and then
Doctor Hopwood will never be heard of again!
.pm verse-end
.pm fn-start
Four lines in the last verse I have supplied, as the copy sent me was
defective.—<i>S. B.-G.</i>
.pm fn-end

The following pretty lines were addressed to a
.bn 214.png
.pn +1
child, the daughter of an attached friend, who was
budding into beautiful womanhood. It was written
in 1864.

.pm verse-start
The eyes that melt, the eyes that burn,
The lips that make a lover yearn,—
These flashed on my bewildered sight
Like meteors of the northern night.

Then said I, in my wild amaze,
“What stars be they that greet my gaze?”
Where shall my shivering rudder turn?
To eyes that melt, or eyes that burn?

Ah! safer far the darkling sea
Than where such perilous signals be;
To rock and storm and whirlwind turn
From eyes that melt, and eyes that burn.
.pm verse-end

A lady was very pressing that he should write
something in her album—she thought his poems so
charming, his ballads so delicious, his epigrams so
delightful, etc. Mr. Hawker was impatient at this
poor flattery, and, taking up her album, wrote in it:—
.fs 85%
.ta h:36 r:8
A best superfine coat              | 5  5 0
A pair of kerseymere small-clothes | 2 14 0
A waistcoat with silk buttons      | 1 10 0
_
                                   |£9  9 0
.ta-
.fs 100%
Mr. Hawker was a poet of no mean order. His
“Quest of the Sangreal,” which is his most ambitious
composition, is a poem of great power, and
contains passages of rare beauty. It is unfortunate
that he should have traversed the same ground as
the Poet Laureate. The “Holy Grail” of the latter
has eclipsed the “Quest” of the vicar of Morwenstow.
But, if the two poems be regarded without
.bn 215.png
.pn +1
previous knowledge of the name of their composers,
I am not sure that some judges would not prefer the
masterpiece of the Cornish poet to a piece in which
Lord Tennyson scarcely rises to his true level. In
his “Quest of the Sangreal” alone does the vicar of
Morwenstow show his real power. His ballads are
charming; but a ballad is never, and can never be, a
poem of a high order; it is essentially a popular piece
of verse, without any depth of thought; pleasing by
its swing and spirit, but not otherwise a work of art
or genius. Mr. Hawker was too fond of the ballad.
His first successes had been won in that line, and he
adhered to it till late. A few sonnets rise to the
level of sonnets, also never a very exalted one. His
“Legend of St. Cecily” and “St. Thekla,” somewhat
larger poems, are pleasing; but there is nothing
in them which gives token of there lying in the
breast of the Cornish vicar a deep vein of the purest
poetical ore. That was revealed only by the publication
of “The Quest of the Sangreal,” which rose
above the smaller fry of ballads and sonnets as an
eagle above the songsters of the grove.

And yet this poem, belonging to the first order, as
I am disposed to regard it, is disappointing—there is
not enough of it. The poem is charged with ideas,
crowded with conceptions full of beauty; but it is a
torso, not a complete statue.

The subject of the poem is the Sangreal[#], the true
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
blood of Christ, gathered by Joseph of Arimathea in a
golden goblet from the side of the Saviour as He hung
on the cross. This precious treasure he conveyed to
Britain, and settled with it at Avalon, or Glastonbury.
.pm fn-start
There is considerable doubt as to the origin of the name Sangraal,
Sangrail or Sangreal. It has been variously derived from Sang-réal, True
Blood, and from Sanc-Grazal, the provençal for Holy Cup. The latter is
the most probable derivation.
.pm fn-end
There it remained till
.sp 2
.pm verse-start
                      Evil days came on,
And evil men: the garbage of their sin
Tainted this land, and all things holy fled.
The Sangreal was not. On a summer eve
The silence of the sky brake up in sound;
The tree of Joseph glowed with ruddy light;
A harmless fire curved like a molten vase
Around the bush——
.pm verse-end
.ni
and all was gone.
.pi
After the lapse of centuries King Arthur sends his
knights in quest of the miraculous vessel. There is
a long account given by Arthur of its history, then
of the drawing of the lots by his knights to decide
the directions in which they are to ride in quest of
it, then of the knights departing, and a description
of the blazon and mottoes on their shields; and then—after
some 400 lines has led us to the beginning
of the Quest, and we expect the adventures of Sir
Percival, Sir Tristan, Sir Launcelot and Sir Galahad—it
all ends in a vision unrolled before the eyes of
King Arthur, of the fate of Britain, in about eighty
lines.

We are disappointed; for Sir Thomas Malory’s
“Morte d’Arthur” supplies abundant material for a
long and glorious poem on the achievements of the
four knights.

The Poet Laureate’s “Holy Grail” did not appear
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
till 1870, or we might suppose that the Cornish poet
shrank from treading on the same ground. When
we turn over Sir Thomas Malory’s pages, it is with
a feeling of bitter regret that we have not his story
glorified by Mr. Hawker’s poetry. The finding of
the Grail by Sir Galahad, his coronation as King of
Sarras, and his death, were subjects he could have
rendered to perfection.

The name of the poem is a misnomer. There is no
quest, only a starting on the quest.

But, in spite of this conspicuous fault, “The Quest
of the Sangreal” is a great poem, containing passages
of rare beauty. Of Joseph of Arimathea Mr.
Hawker says,—

.pm verse-start
He dwelt in Orient Syria, God’s own land,
The ladder-foot of heaven; where shadowy shapes
In white apparel glided up and down.
His home was like a garner full of corn
And wine and oil—a granary of God.
Young men, that no one knew, went in and out
With a far look in their eternal eyes.
All things were strange and rare: the Sangreal
As though it clung to some ethereal chain,
Brought down high heaven to earth at Arimathèe.
.pm verse-end

The idea of the poet:—

.pm verse-start
The conscious water saw its God, and blushed—
.pm verse-end
.ni
in reference to the miracle at Cana, occurs with a
change in Mr. Hawker’s verses, with reference to the
Last Supper:—
.pi
.pm verse-start
The selfsame cup, wherein the faithful wine
Heard God, and was obedient unto blood.
.pm verse-end
.bn 218.png
.pn +1

After the loss of the Holy Grail:—

.pm verse-start
The land is lonely now: Anathema.
The link that bound it to the silent grasp
Of thrilling worlds is gathered up and gone:
The glory is departed, and the disk
So full of radiance from the touch of God.
This orb is darkened to the distant watch
Of Saturn and his reapers when they pause,
Amid their sheaves, to count the nightly stars.
.pm verse-end

The Eastward craving of Mr. Hawker, the point to
which his heart and instincts turned, find expression
in this poem repeatedly:—

.pm verse-start
Eastward! the source and spring of life and light.
Thence came, and thither went, the rush of worlds
When the great cone of space was sown with stars.
There rolled the gateway of the double dawn
When the mere God shone down a breathing man.
There, up from Bethany, the Syrian twelve
Watched their dear Master darken into day.
.pm verse-end
.hr 10%
.pm verse-start
Sir Galahad holds the Orient arrow’s name,
His chosen hand unbars the gate of day.
There glows that Heart, filled with his mother’s blood,
That rules in every pulse the world of man,
Link of the awful Three, with many a star.
O blessed East! ’mid visions such as thine,
’Twere well to grasp the Sangreal, and die.
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
.fs 100%
In one passage Mr. Hawker seems to be speaking
the feeling of loneliness that he ever felt in his own
heart: he was, as he says in one of his letters, “the
ever alone.”
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Ha! sirs, ye seek a noble crest to-day—
To win and wear the starry Sangreal,
The link that binds to God a lonely land.
Would that my arm went with you like my heart!
.bn 219.png
.pn +1
But the true shepherd must not shun the fold;
For in this flock are crouching grievous wolves,
And chief among them all my own false kin.
Therefore I tarry by the cruel sea
To hear at eve the treacherous mermaid’s song,
And watch the wallowing monsters of the wave,
’Mid all things fierce and wild and strange—<i>alone</i>!
Ay! all beside can win companionship:
The churl may clip his mate beneath the thatch,
While his brown urchins nestle at his knees;
The soldier gives and grasps a mutual palm,
Knit to his flesh in sinewy bonds of war;
The knight may seek at eve his castle-gate,
Mount the old stair, and lift the accustomed latch,
To find, for throbbing brow and weary limb,
That paradise of pillows, one true breast.
But he, the lofty ruler of the land,
Like yonder Tor, first greeted by the dawn,
And wooed the latest by the lingering day,
With happy homes and hearths beneath his breast,
Must soar and gleam in solitary snow:
The lonely one is ever more the king!
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
Here are some beautiful lines on Cornwall:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Ah! native Cornwall! throned upon the hills,
Thy moorland pathways worn by angel feet,
Thy streams that march in music to the sea,
’Mid Ocean’s merry noise, his billowy laugh!
Ah, me! a gloom falls heavy on my soul:
The birds that sang to me in youth are dead.
I think, in dreamy vigils of the night,
It may be God is angry with my land—
Too much athirst for fame, too fond of blood,
And all for earth, for shadows, and the dream,
To glean an echo from the winds of song!
.pm verse-end

Mr. Hawker’s poems were republished over and
over again, with a few, but only a few, additions.
.bn 220.png
.pn +1

The pieces written by him as a boy, <i>Tendrils, by
Reuben</i>, were never reprinted, nor did they deserve
it. He saw that clearly enough.

In 1832 he published his <i>Records of the Western
Shore</i>; in 1836, the second series of the same. In
these appeared his Cornish ballads.

They were republished in a volume entitled <i>Ecclesia</i>,
in 1841; again, with some additions, under the title,
<i>Reeds Shaken by the Wind</i>, in 1842; and the second
cluster of the same in 1843.

They again appeared with “Genoveva,” in a
volume called <i>Echoes of Old Cornwall</i>, in 1845.
“Genoveva” is a poem founded on the beautiful
story of Geneviève de Brabant, and appeared first in
<i>German Ballads, Songs</i>, etc., edited by Miss Smedley,
and published by James Burns, no date.

His <i>Cornish Ballads</i>, and the <i>Quest of the Sangreal</i>,
containing reprints of the same poems, came out in
1869. The <i>Quest of the Sangreal</i> was first published
in 1864.

In 1870 he collected into a volume, entitled <i>Footprints
of Former Men in Cornwall</i>, various papers on
local traditions he had communicated to <i>Once a Week</i>,
and other periodicals.

Of his ballads several have been given in this
volume. Two more only are given here; one, “The
Song of the Western Men,” which deceived Sir
Walter Scott and Lord Macaulay into the belief that
it was a genuine ancient ballad.

Macaulay says, in speaking of the agitation which
prevailed throughout the country during the trial of
the seven bishops, of whom Trelawney, Bishop of
.bn 221.png
.pn +1
Bristol, was one, “The people of Cornwall, a fierce,
bold and athletic race, among whom there was a
stronger provincial feeling than in any other part of
the realm, were greatly moved by the danger of
Trelawney, whom they reverenced less as a ruler of
the Church, than as the head of an honourable house,
and the heir, through twenty descents, of ancestors
who had been of great note before the Normans set
foot on English ground. All over the country the
peasants chanted a ballad, of which the burden is
still remembered:—

.pm verse-start
And shall Trelawney die? and shall Trelawney die?
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why!
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
The miners from the caverns re-echoed the song
with a variation:—
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Then thirty thousand underground will know the reason why!
.pm verse-end
.sp 1
The refrain is ancient, but the poem itself was
composed by Mr. Hawker. This is its earliest form:
it afterwards underwent some revision.
.sp 1
.nf c
THE SONG OF THE WESTERN MEN.
.nf-
.pm verse-start
A good sword and a trusty hand,
  A merry heart and true,
King James’s men shall understand
  What Cornish lads can do.
And have they fixed the where and when,
  And shall Trelawney die?
Then twenty thousand Cornish men
  Will know the reason why!
What! will they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
  And shall Trelawney die?
Then twenty thousand underground
  Will know the reason why!
.bn 222.png
.pn +1

Out spake the captain brave and bold,
  A merry wight was he:
“Though London’s Tower were Michael’s hold,
  We’ll set Trelawney free.
We’ll cross the Tamar hand to hand,
  The Exe shall be no stay;
We’ll side by side, from strand to strand,
  And who shall bid us nay?”
What! will they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
  And shall Trelawney die?
Then twenty thousand Cornish men
  Will know the reason why!

And when we come to London Wall,
  We’ll shout with it in view,
“Come forth, come forth, ye cowards all!
  We’re better men than you!
Trelawney, he’s in keep and hold,
  Trelawney, he may die;
But here’s twenty thousand Cornish bold
  Will know the reason why!”
What! will they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
  And shall Trelawney die?
Then twenty thousand underground
  Will know the reason why!
.pm verse-end

The other is a touching little ballad, the lament of
a Cornish mother over her dead child; which well
illustrates the sympathy which always welled up in
the kind vicar’s heart when he met with suffering or
sorrow:—

.pm verse-start
They say ’tis a sin to sorrow,
  That what God doth is best;
But ’tis only a month to-morrow
  I buried it from my breast.

I know it should be a pleasure
  Your child to God to send;
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
But mine was a precious treasure
  To me and to my poor friend.

I thought it would call me mother,
  The very first words it said:
Oh, I never can love another
  Like the blessed babe that’s dead!

Well, God is its own dear Father;
  It was carried to church, and blessed;
And our Saviour’s arms will gather
  Such children to their rest.

I will check this foolish sorrow,
  For what God doth is best;
But oh, ’tis a month to-morrow
  I buried it from my breast!
.pm verse-end

The following beautiful verses, of very high order of
poetical merit, have not previously been published:—
.sp 1
.nf c
A THOUGHT.

<s>[30th Aug. 1866. Suggested by Gen. xviii. 1-3.]</s>
.nf-
.pm verse-start
A fair and stately scene of roof and walls
  Touched by the ruddy sunsets of the West,
Where, meek and molten, eve’s soft radiance falls
  Like golden feathers in the ringdove’s nest.

Yonder the bounding sea, that couch of God!
  A wavy wilderness of sand between;
Such pavement, in the Syrian deserts, trod
  Bright forms, in girded albs, of heavenly mien.

Such saw the patriarch in his noonday tent:
  Three severed shapes that glided in the sun,
Till, lo! they cling, and, interfused and blent,
  A lovely semblance gleams, the three in one!
.bn 224.png
.pn +1

Be such the scenery of this peaceful ground,
  This leafy tent amid the wilderness;
Fair skies above, the breath of angels round,
  And God the Trinity to beam and bless!
.pm verse-end

This poem was sent to an intimate friend with this
letter:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>Dear Mrs. M——</sc>,—I record the foregoing thought for you,
because it literally occurred to me as I looked from the windows
of your house, across the sand towards the sea. Forgive the
lines for the sake of their sincerity, etc....
.pm letter-end

He wrote a poem of singular beauty on the auroral
display of the night of 10th Nov. 1870, which was
privately printed. In it he gave expression to the
fancy, not original, but borrowed from Origen, or
from North American Indian mythology, that the
underworld of spirits is within this globe, and the
door is at the North Pole, and the flashing of the
lights is caused by the opening of the door to receive
the dead. The following passage from his pen refers
to the same idea:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>Churchyards.</sc>—The north side is included in the same
consecration with the rest of the ground. All within the
boundary, and the boundary itself, is alike hallowed in sacred
and secular law. It is because of the doctrine of the Regions,
which has descended unbrokenly in the Church, that an evil
repute rests on the northern parts. The East, from whence the
Son of Man came, and who will come again from the Orient to
judgment, was, and is, his own especial realm. The dead lie
with their feet and faces turned eastwardly, ready to stand
up before the approaching Judge. The West was called the
Galilee, the region of the people. The South, the home of the
noonday, was the typical domain of heavenly things. But the
North, the ill-omened North, was the peculiar haunt of evil
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
spirits and the dark powers of the air. Satan’s door stood in
the north wall, opposite the font, and was duly opened at the
exorcism in baptism for the egress of the fiend. When our
Lord lay in the sepulchre, it was with feet towards the east, so
that his right hand gave benediction to the South, and his left
hand reproached and repelled the North. When the evil spirits
were cast out by the voice of Messiah, they fled, ever more,
northward. The god of the North was Baalzephon. They say
that at the North Pole there stands the awful gate, which none
may approach and live, and which leads to the central depths
of penal life.
.ti 15
R. S. H.

<sc>Morwenstow.</sc>
.pm letter-end

.bn 226.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch09
CHAPTER IX
.pm ch-hd-start
Restoration of Morwenstow Church—The Shingle Roof—The First Ruridecanal
Synod—The Weekly Offertory—Correspondence with Mr.
Walter—On Alms—Harvest Thanksgiving—The School—Mr. Hawker
belonged to no Party—His Eastern Proclivities—Theological Ideas—Baptism—Original
Sin—His Preaching—Some Sermons.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.3 0.7
<sc>The</sc> church of Morwenstow was restored by Mr.
Hawker in 1849; that is to say, he removed
the pews that had been built about the old
carved oak benches, pulled down the gallery, and
put up a new pulpit, and made sundry other changes
in the church.

The roof was covered with oak shingle in the most
deplorable condition of decay. According to the
description of a mason who went up the tower to
survey it, “it looked, for all the world, like a wrecked
ship thrown up on the shore.”

Mr. Hawker was very anxious to have the roof
reshingled, and this question was before the vestry
during several years. The parish offered to give the
church a roofing of the best Delabole slate, but the
vicar stood out for shingle. The rate-payers protested
against wasting their money on such a perishable
material, but the vicar would not yield.

Vestry meeting after vestry meeting was called on
this matter; one of the landowners remonstrated,
but all in vain: Mr. Hawker remained unmoved; a
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
shingle roof he would have, or none at all. A gentleman
wrote to him, quoting a passage from Parker’s
<i>Glossary of Architecture</i> to show that anciently shingle
roofs were put on only because more durable material
was not available, and were removed when lead, slate
or tiles were to be had. But Mr. Hawker remained
unconvinced. “Our parson du stick to his maygaims,”
said the people shrugging their shoulders. He was
very angry with the opposition to his shingle roof,
and quarrelled with several of his parishioners about
it.

He managed to collect money among his friends,
and re-roofed the church, bit by bit, with oak shingle.
But old shingle was made from heart of oak cut down
in winter: the shingle he obtained was from oak cut
in spring for barking, and therefore full of sap. The
consequence was, that in a very few years it rotted,
and let the water in as through a colander.

Enough money was thrown away on this roof to
have put the whole church in thorough repair.

I pointed out to the vicar some years ago, when he
was talking of repairing his church, that the stones
in the arches and in the walls were of various sorts—some
good building-stones, some rotten, some dark,
some light—giving a patchwork appearance to the
interior. I advised the removal of the poorer stones,
and the insertion of better ones for the sake of uniformity.
“No, never!” he answered. “The Church
is built up of good and bad, of the feeble and the
strong, the rich and the poor, the durable and the
perishable. The material Church is a type of the
Catholic Church, not the type of a sect.”
.bn 228.png
.pn +1

In many ways Mr. Hawker was before his time, as
in other ways he was centuries behind it.

He was the first to reinstitute ruridecanal synods
which had fallen into disuse in Cornwall; and, when
he was rural dean in 1844, he issued the following
citation to all the clergy of the deanery of Trigg-Major:—

.pm letter-start
In obedience to the desire of many of the clergy, and with
the full sanction of our Right Reverend Father in God, the
lord bishop of this diocese, I propose, in these anxious days of
the ecclesiate, to restore the ancient usage of rural synods
in the deanery of Trigg-Major. I accordingly convene you to
appear, in your surplice, in my church of Morwenstow on the
fifth day of March next ensuing, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon,
then and there, after divine service, to deliberate with
your brethren in chapter assembled. I remain, reverend sir,
your faithful servant,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>,
.ti 20
<i>The Rural Dean</i>.

<sc>February, 1844.</sc>
.pm letter-end

Accordingly on 5th March, the clergy assembled in
the vicarage, and walked in procession thence to the
church in their surplices. The church was filled with
the laity; the clergy were seated in the chancel. The
altar was adorned with flowers and lighted candles.
After service the laity withdrew, and the doors of the
church were closed. The clergy then assembled in
the nave, and the rural dean read them an elaborate
and able statement of the case of rural chapters,
after which they proceeded to business. His paper
on Rural Synods was afterwards published by Edwards
& Hughes, Ave Maria Lane, 1844.

It is remarkable that synods, which are now everywhere
revived throughout the Church of England,
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
meeting sometimes in vestries, sometimes in dining-rooms,
were first restored, after the desuetude of three
centuries, in the church of Morwenstow, and with
so much gravity and dignity, over fifty years ago.

The importance of the weekly offertory is another
thing now recognised. The Church seems to be preparing
herself against possible disestablishment and
disendowment, by reviving her organic life in synods,
and by impressing on her people the necessity of
giving towards the support of the services and the
ministry. But the weekly offertory is quite a novelty
in most places still. Almost the first incumbent in
England to establish it was the vicar of Morwenstow,
before 1843.

He entered into controversy on the subject of the
offertory with Mr. Walter of <i>The Times</i>.

When the Poor Law Amendment Bill passed in
1834, and was amended in 1836 and 1838, it was
thought by many that the need for an offertory in
church was done away with, and that the giving of
alms to the poor was an interference with the working
of the Poor Law.

Mr. Hawker published a statement of what he
did in this matter in <i>The English Churchman</i>, for 1844.
Mr. Walter made this statement the basis of an
attack on the system, and especially on Mr. Hawker,
in a letter to <i>The Times</i>.

Mr. Hawker replied to this:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>Sir</sc>,—I regret to discover that you have permitted yourself
to invade the tranquillity of my parish, and to endeavour to interrupt
the harmony between myself and my parishioners, in a
letter which I have just read in a recent number of <i>The Times</i>.
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
You have done so by a garbled copy of a statement which
appeared in <i>The English Churchman</i>, of the reception and
disposal of the offertory alms in the parish church of Morwenstow.

I say “garbled” because, while you have adduced just so
much of the document as suited your purpose, you have suppressed
such parts of it as might have tended to alleviate the
hostility which many persons entertain to this part of the
service of the Church.

With reference to our choice, as the recipients of Church
money, of labourers whose “wages are seven shillings a week,”
and “who have a wife and four children to maintain thereon,”
you say, “Here is an excuse for the employer to give deficient
wages!”

In reply to this, I beg to inform you that the wages in this
neighbourhood never fluctuate: they have continued at this
fixed amount during the ten years of my incumbency.... Your
argument, as applied to my parishioners, is this: Because they
have scanty wages in that county, therefore they should have
no alms; because these labourers of Morwenstow are restricted
by the law from any relief from the rate, therefore they shall
have no charity from the Church; because they have little, therefore
they shall have no more. You insinuate that I, a Christian
minister, think eight shillings a week sufficient for six persons
during a winter’s week, as though I were desirous to limit the
resources of my poor parishioners to that sum. May God forgive
you your miserable supposition! I have all my life sincerely,
and not to serve any party purpose, been an advocate of
the cause of the poor. I, for many long years, have honestly,
and not to promote political ends, denounced the unholy and
cruel enactments of the New Poor Law....

Let me now proceed to correct some transcendent misconceptions
of yourself and others as to the nature and intent of
the offertory in church. The ancient and modern division of all
religious life was, and is, threefold—into devotion, self-denial
and alms. No sacred practice, no Christian service, was or is
complete without the union of these three. They were all alike
and equally enjoined by the Saviour of man. The collection
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
of alms was therefore incorporated in the Book of Common
Prayer. But it was never held to be established among the
services of the Church for the benefit of the poor alone: it was
to enable the rich to enjoy the blessedness of almsgiving for
their Redeemer’s sake: it was to afford to every giver fixed and
solemn opportunity to fulfil the remembrance, that whatsoever
they did to the poor they did unto Him, and that the least of
such their kindness would not be forgotten at the last day.
“Let us wash,” they said, “our Saviour’s feet by alms”....
But this practice of alms, whereunto the heavenly Head of the
Church annexed a specific reward—this necessity, we are told,
is become obsolete. A Christian duty become, by desuetude,
obsolete! As well might a man infer that any other religious
excellence ceased to be obligatory because it had been disused.
The virtue of humility, for example, which has been so long in
abeyance among certain of the laity, shall no longer, therefore,
be a Christian grace! The blessing on the meek shall cease in
1844! ... Voluntary kindness and alms have been rendered
unnecessary by the compulsory payments enacted by the New
Poor Law! As though the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew
had been repealed by Sir James Graham! As if one of the
three conditions of our Christian covenant was to expire during
the administration of Sir Robert Peel!...

And now, sir, I conclude with one or two parting admonitions
to yourself. You are, I am told, an elderly man, fast
approaching the end of all things, and, ere many years have
passed, about to stand a separated soul among the awful mysteries
of the spiritual world. I counsel you to beware, lest the remembrance
of these attempts to diminish the pence of the poor,
and to impede the charitable duties of the rich, should assuage
your happiness in that abode where the strifes and the triumphs
of controversy are unknown, “Because thou hast done this
thing, and because thou hadst no pity”. And lastly, I advise
you not again to assail our rural parishes with such publications,
to harass and unsettle the minds of our faithful people. We,
the Cornish clergy, are a humble and undistinguished race; but
we are apt, when unjustly assailed, to defend ourselves in
straightforward language, and to utter plain admonitions, such
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
as, on this occasion, I have thought it my duty to address to
yourself; and I remain your obedient servant,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.

<sc>Nov.</sc> 27, 1844.
.pm letter-end

Now there is scarcely a church in England in which
a harvest thanksgiving service is not held. But
probably the first to institute such a festival in the
Anglican Church was the vicar of Morwenstow in
1843.

In that year he issued a notice to his parishioners
to draw their attention to the duty of thanking God
for the harvest, and of announcing that he would set
apart a Sunday for such a purpose.
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
.ni
<sc>To the Parishioners of Morwenstow.</sc>
.pi
When the sacred Psalmist inquired what he should render
unto the Lord for all the benefits that He had done unto him,
he made answer to himself, and said: “I will receive the cup of
salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord”. Brethren, God
has been very merciful to us this year also. He hath filled our
garners with increase, and satisfied our poor with bread. He
opened His hand, and filled all things living with plenteousness.
Let us offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving among such as keep
Holy Day. Let us gather together in the chancel of our church
on the first Sunday of the next month, and there receive, in the
bread of the new corn,[#] that blessed sacrament which was
ordained to strengthen and refresh our souls. As it is written,
“He rained down manna also upon them for to eat, and gave
them food from heaven.” And again, “In the hand of the
Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red.” Furthermore, let us
remember, that, as a multitude of grains of wheat are mingled
into one loaf, so we, being many, are intended to be joined
together into one, in that holy sacrament of the Church of Jesus
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
Christ. Brethren, on the first morning of October call to mind
the word, that, wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles
be gathered together. “Let the people praise thee, O God,
yea, let all the people praise thee! Then shall the earth bring
forth her increase, and God, even our own God, shall give us
His blessing. God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth
shall fear Him.”
.ti 15
<sc>The Vicar.</sc>

<sc>The Vicarage, Morwenstow</sc>, Sept. 13, 1843.
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
On 1st Oct., Lammas Day, the eucharistic bread was anciently made of
the new corn of the recent harvest. This custom Mr. Hawker revived.
.pm fn-end

At much expense to himself he built and maintained
a school in a central position in the parish.
He called it St. Mark’s School. It stands on a very
exposed spot, and the site can hardly be considered
as judiciously chosen. It is unnecessary here, it
could hardly prove interesting, to quote numberless
letters which I have before me, recounting his struggles
to keep this school open, and obtain an efficient
master for it. It was a great tax on his means,
lightened, however, by the donations and subscriptions
of landowners in the parish and personal friends
towards the close of his life.

But in 1857 he wrote a letter to a friend, who has
sent the letter to <i>The Rock</i>, from which I extract it.

.pm letter-start
It is said that Mr. Hawker is a very “eccentric” man. Now,
I know not in what sense they may have intended the phrase,
nor, in fact, what they wish to insinuate; so that I can hardly
reply. If they mean to convey the ordinary force of the term,
namely, a person out of the common, I am again at a loss. I
wear a cassock, instead of a broadcloth coat, which is, I know,
eccentric; but then, I have paid my parish school expenses for
many years out of the difference between the usual clergyman’s
tailor’s bill and my own cost in apparel; so that I do not, as
they may have meant, feel ashamed or blush at such eccentricity.
My mode of life, again, does differ from that of most
of my clerical neighbours; for while they belong, some to one
.bn 234.png
.pn +1
party in the Church and some to another, I have always lived
aloof from them all, whether High or Low. And although
there exist clerical clubs of both extremes in this deanery, and
I have been invited to join by each, I never yet was present at
a club meeting, dinner or a local synod. The time would fail
me to recount the many modes and manners wherein I do differ
from usual men. Be it enough that I am neither ashamed nor
sorry for any domestic or parochial habit of life.
.pm letter-end

In 1845 he issued the following curious notice in
reference to his daily prayer and his school:—
.sp 1
.fs 85%
.nf c
<sc>Take Notice.</sc>
.nf-
.pm letter-start
The vicar will say Divine service henceforward every morning
at ten and every evening at four. “Praised be the Lord
<i>daily</i>, even the God that helpeth us, and poureth His benefits
upon us” (Ps. lxviii. 19).

The vicar will attend at St. Mark’s schoolroom every Friday
at three o’clock, to catechise the scholars, and at the Sunday
school at the usual hour. He will not from henceforth show
the same kindness to those who keep back their children from
school as he will to those who send them. “Thou shalt not
seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” (Exod. xxiii. 19).
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Mr. Hawker was a High Churchman, but one of
an original type, wholly distinct from the Tractarian
of the first period, and the Ritualist of the second
period, of the Catholic revival in the English Church.
He never associated himself with any party. He did
not read the controversial literature of his day, or
interest himself in the persons of the ecclesiastical
movement in the Anglican communion.
.sp 1
In November, 1861, he wrote:—

.pm letter-start
Dr. Bloxham was an ancient friend of mine (at Oxford).
One of a large body of good and learned men, all now gone,
and he only left. How I recollect their faces and words!
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
Newman, Pusey, Ward, Marriott—they used to be all in the
common-room every evening, discussing, talking, reading. I
remember the one to whom I did not take was Dr. Pusey.
He never seemed simple in thought or speech; obscure and
involved. He was the last in all that set—as I now look back
and think—to have followers called by his name.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Mr. Hawker turned his eyes far more towards the
Eastern Church than towards Rome. His mind was
fired by Mr. Collins-Trelawney’s <i>Peranzabuloe or
the Lost Church Found</i>, the fourth edition of which
appeared in 1839. It was an account of the ancient
British chapel and cell of St. Piran, which had been
swallowed up by the sands, but which was exhumed,
and the bones of the saint, some ancient crosses, and
early rude sculpture found. The author of the book
drew a picture of the ancient British Church independent
of Rome, having its own local peculiarities
with regard to the observance of Easter, and the
tonsure, etc., and argued that this church, which
held aloof from St. Augustine, was of Oriental origin.
He misunderstood the paschal question altogether,
and his argument on that head falls to the ground
when examined by the light which can be brought
to bear on it from Irish sources. The ancient
British, Scottish and Irish churches did not follow
the Oriental rule with regard to the observance of
Easter; but their calendar had got out of gear, and
they objected to its revision.

However, the book convinced Mr. Hawker that he
must look to the East for the ancestors of the Cornish
Church, and not Rome-wards; and this view of the
case lasted through his life, and coloured his opinions.
.bn 236.png
.pn +1

When Dr. J. Mason Neale’s <i>History of the Holy
Eastern Church</i> came out, he was intensely interested
in it; and his Oriental fever reached its climax,
and manifested itself in the adoption of a pink brimless
hat, after the Eastern type. This Eastern craze
also probably induced him, when he adopted a vestment,
to put on a cope for the celebration of the
holy communion; that vestment being used by the
Armenian Church for the Divine Mysteries, whereas
it is <i>never</i> so used in the Roman Church.

His theology assumed an Oriental tinge, and he
expressed his views more as an Eastern than as a
son of the West.

A few of his short notes of exposition on Holy
Scripture have come into my hands, and I insert one
or two of them as specimens of the poetical fancy
which played round Gospel truths.

.pm letter-start
[Greek: Ho mesi/tês]. A mediator is not one who prays. Christ’s
manhood is the intermediate thing which stands between the
Trinity and man, to link and blend the natures human and
Divine. It is the bridge between the place of exile and our
native land. The presence of God the Son, standing with his
wounds on the right hand of God the Father <i>is</i>, and constitutes,
mediation.
.pm letter-end

His idea is that mediation is not intercession, but
the serving as a channel of intercommunion between
God and man. Thus there can be but one mediator,
but every one may intercede for another. There
can be no doubt that he was right.

His views with regard to baptism were peculiar.
He seems to have retained a little of his grandfather’s
Calvinistic leaven in his soul, much as St.
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
Augustine’s early Manichæism clung to him, and
discoloured his later orthodoxy. The Catholic
doctrine of the Fall is, that, by the first transgression
of Adam, a discord entered into his constitution,
so that thenceforth, soul and mind and body, instead
of desiring what is good and salutary, are distracted
by conflicting wishes, the flesh lusting against the
spirit, and the mind approving that which is repugnant
to the body. The object of the Incarnation is
to restore harmony to the nature of man; and in
baptism is infused into man a supernatural element
of power for conciliating the three constituents of
man. Fallen man is, according to Tridentine
doctrine, a beautiful instrument whose strings are
in discord; a chime
.sp 1
.pm verse-start
Of sweet bells jangled, out of tune.
.pm verse-end
But he is provided with the Conciliator, with One
whose note is so clear and true that he can raise the
pitch of all his strings by that, and thus restore the
lost music of the world.

Lutheran and Calvinistic teaching, however, are
the reverse of this. According to the language of
the “Formulary of Concord,” man by the Fall has
lost every element of good, even the smallest capacity
and aptitude and power in spiritual things; he has
lost the faculty of knowing God, and the will to do
anything that is good; he can no more lead a good
life than a stock or a stone; everything good in him
is utterly obliterated. There is also a positive ingredient
of sin infused into the veins of every man.
Sin is, according to Luther, of the essence of man,
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
Original sin is not, as the Church teaches, the loss
of supernatural grace co-ordinating man’s faculties,
and their consequent disorder; it is something born
of the father and mother. The clay of which we are
formed is damnable; the fœtus in the mother’s womb
is sin; man, with his whole nature and essence, is
not only a sinner, but sin. Such are the expressions
of Luther, indorsed by Carlstadt. Man, according
to Catholic theology, still bears in him the image of
God, but blurred. According to Melancthon, this
image is wholly obliterated by an “intimate, most
evil, most profound, inscrutable, ineffable corruption
of our whole nature.” Calvin clinches the matter
by observing that from man’s corrupted nature comes
only what is damnable. “Man,” says he, “has been
so banished from the kingdom of God, that all in
him that bears reference to the blessed life of the
soul is extinct.”[#] And if men have glimpses of
better things, it is only that God may take from
them every excuse when he damns them.[#]

Mr. Hawker by no means adopted the Catholic
view of the Fall: the Protestant doctrine of the utter
corruption and ruin of man’s nature had been so
deeply driven into his mind by his grandfather, that
it never wholly worked itself out, and he never
attained to the healthier view of human nature as
a compound of good elements temporarily thrown in
disarray.

This view of his appears in papers which are under
my eye, as I write, and in his ballad for a cottage-wall,
on Baptism.
.pm fn-start
<i>Institutes</i>, lib. ii., c. 2, sect. 12.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
<i>Ibid.</i>, sect. 18.
.pm fn-end
.bn 239.png
.pn +1

.pm verse-start
Ah! woe is me! for I have no grace
  Nor goodness as I ought:
I never shall go to the happy place,
  And ’tis all my parents’ fault.
.pm verse-end

His teaching on the Eucharist he embodied in a
ballad entitled “Ephphatha”. An old blind man sits
in a hall at Morwenstow, that of Tonacombe probably.

.pm verse-start
He asks, and bread of wheat they bring;
He thirsts for water from the spring
Which flowed of old, and still flows on,
With name and memory of St. John.
.pm verse-end

Bread and water are given him; and, through the
stained windows, glorious rainbow tints fall over
what is set before him. A page looking on him
pities the old man, because—

.pm verse-start
He eats, but sees not on that bread
What glorious radiance there is shed;
He drinks from out that chalice fair,
Nor marks the sunlight glancing there.

Watch! gentle Ronald, watch and pray!
And hear once more an old man’s lay:
I cannot see the morning poured
Ruddy and rich on this gay board;
I may not trace the noonday light
Wherewith my bread and bowl are bright;
But thou, whose words are sooth, hast said
That brightness falls on this fair bread;
Thou sayest, and thy tones are true,
This cup is tinged with heaven’s own hue:
I trust thy voice, I know from thee
That which I cannot hear nor see.
.pm verse-end
.bn 240.png
.pn +1

The application of the parable is palpable. Mr.
Hawker appended to the ballad the following note:—

.pm letter-start
I have sought in these verses to suggest a shadow of that
beautiful instruction to Christian men, the actual and spiritual
presence of our Lord in the second Sacrament of His Church;
a primal and perpetual doctrine in the faith once delivered to
the saints. How sadly the simplicity of this hath and has been
distorted and disturbed by the gross and sensuous notion of a
carnal presence, introduced by the Romish innovation of the
eleventh century![#]
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
Note in <i>Ecclesia</i>, 1841.
.pm fn-end

The following passage occurs in one of his sermons:—

.pm letter-start
If there be anything in all the earth to which our Lord did
join a blessing, and that for evermore, it was the bread and the
cup. Surely of this Sacrament, which the apostles served, it
may be said, He that receiveth you receiveth Me. Now, nothing
can be more certain than that our Lord and Master, before He
suffered death, called into His presence the twelve men, the
<i>equal</i> founders of His future Church. He stood alone with the
twelve. There was nobody else there but those ministers and
their Lord. Nothing is more manifest than that He took bread
of corn, and showed the apostles in what manner and with what
words to bless and to break it. Equally clear is it, that their
Lord took into His hands, with remarkable gesture and deed,
the cup, and taught the twelve also the blessing of the wine.
Accordingly, after the Son of man went up, we read that the
apostles took bread, and blessed, and gave it to the Church.
Likewise also they took the cup.

And, although the Romish Dissenters keep it back to this
day, the apostles gave the wine also to the people. St. Paul,
who was not one of the twelve, but a bishop afterwards
ordained, writes: “We have an altar”. He speaks of the bread
which he breaks, and the cup he was accustomed to bless. So
we trace from those old apostolic days, down to our own, an
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
altar-table of wood in remembrance of the wooden cross, fine
white bread, good and wholesome wine, a ministry descended
from the apostles, to be in all ages and in every land the outward
and visible signs of a great event—the eternal sacrifice
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, nothing can be more plain than that these things, so
seen, and handled, and felt, and eaten, and drunk, were delivered
to the Church to contain and to convey a deep blessing,
an actual grace. They were ordained for this end by Christ
Himself: He said of the bread, This is My body; <i>i.e.</i>, not a part
of My flesh, but a portion of My spiritual presence, a share of
that which is Divine.

Again, Jesus said about the cup, This is My blood; <i>i.e.</i>, not
that which gushed upon the soldier’s spear, but the life-blood
of My heavenly heart, that which shall be shed on you from
on high with the fruit of the vine—the produce of the everlasting
veins of Him who is on the right hand of God.

So was it understood, so is it explained, by apostolic words.
Thus said St. Paul, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is
it not the communion—the common reception, that is—the
communication to faithful lips of the blood of Christ?”

So we say in our Catechism, that the body and blood of
Christ are verily and indeed taken and received. We confess
that our souls are strengthened and refreshed in the Sacrament
of the body and blood of Christ: we call the bread and wine in
our service heavenly food. We acknowledge that we spiritually
eat the flesh of Christ, and drink His blood. We declare that
in that Sacrament we join Him, and He us, as drops of water
that mingle in the sea, and that we are, in that awful hour, very
members incorporate in the mystical body of the Son of God,—words
well-nigh too deep to apprehend or to explain.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Mr. Hawker, holding, as has been shown, that
mediation was distinct from intercession, admitted
that the dead in Christ could pray for their brethren
struggling in the warfare of life, as really and more
effectually than they could when living. If the souls
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
under the altar seen by St. John could cry out for
vengeance on those upon earth, surely they could
also ask for mercy to be shown them.

He thought that all the baptised had six sponsors,
the three on earth and three in heaven. Those in
heaven were the guardian angel of the child, the
saint whose name the child bore, and the saint to
whom the church was dedicated in which the baptism
took place; and that, as it was the duty of
earthly sponsors to look after and pray for their
godchildren, so it was the privilege and pleasure of
their heavenly patrons to watch and intercede for
their welfare.

He did not see why Christians should not ask the
prayers of those in bliss, as well as the prayers of
those in contest; and he contended that this was a
very different matter from Romish invocation of
saints, that invested the blessed ones with all but
Divine attributes, and which he utterly repudiated.
He quoted Latimer, Bishop Montague, Thorndike,
Bishop Forbes, in the seventeenth century; and
Dean Field, and Morton, Bishop of Durham, etc.,
as holding precisely the same view as himself.

Of course his doctrines to some seem to be perilously
high. But in the English Church there are
various shades of dogmatism, and the faintest tinge
to one whose views are colourless is a great advance.
The slug at the bottom of the cabbage-stalk thinks
the slug an inch up the stalk very high, and the slug
on the stalk regards the slug on the leaf as perilously
advanced, whilst the slug on the leaf considers the snail
on the leaf-end as occupying an equivocal position.
.bn 243.png
.pn +1

Catholicism and Popery have really nothing necessarily
in common. The first is a system of belief
founded on the Incarnation, the advantages of which
it applies to man through a sacramental system;
while the latter is a system of ecclesiastical organisation,
which has only accidentally been linked with
Catholicism, but which is equally at home in the
steppes of Tartary with Buddhism.

Popery is a centralisation in matter of Church
government: it is autocracy. A man may be
theoretically an Ultramontane without being even
a Christian, for he may believe in a despotism. And
a man may be a Catholic in all his views, without
having the smallest sympathy with Popery. As a
matter of fact, the most advanced men in the English
Church are radically liberal in their views of Church
government; and if they strive with one hand
to restore forgotten doctrines, and reinstate public
worship, with the other they do battle for the introduction
of Constitutionalism into the organisation
of the Church of England, the element of all others
most opposed to Popery.

It is quite possible to distinguish Catholicism from
Romanism. Romanism has developed a system—a
miserable system of indulgences and dispensations
on one side, and restraints on the other—all issuing
from the throne of St. Peter, as an impure flood from
a corrupt fountain, and which has sadly injured
Christian morals. A student of history cannot fail to
notice that the Papacy has been a blight on Christianity,
robbing it of its regenerating and reforming
power, a parasitic growth draining it of its life-blood.
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
He may love, with every fibre of his soul, the great
sacramental system, the glorious Catholic verities,
common to Constantinople and Rome, to Jerusalem
and Moscow; but it is only to make him bitterly
regret that they have been used as a vehicle for
Romish cupidity, so as to make them odious in the
eyes of Protestants. Holding Catholic doctrines, and
enjoying Catholic practices, an English Churchman
may be as far removed in temper of soul from Rome
as any Irish Orangeman.

Mr. Hawker held the Blessed Virgin in great
reverence. The ideal of womanhood touched his
poetical instincts. Yet he checked his exuberant
fancy, when dealing with this theme, by his conscience
of what was right and fitting. He says, in a
sermon on the text: “He stretched forth His hand towards
His disciples, and said, Behold My mother and
My brethren; for whosoever shall do the will of God,
the same is My brother and sister and mother:” “His
mother also, whom the angel had pronounced blessed
among women, because on her knees the future Christ
should lie, sought to usurp the influence of nature
over the Son Divine. But to teach that although in
the earth He was not all of the earth, and aware of the
blind idolatry which future men would yield unto her
who bare Him, and those to whom His Incarnation in
their family gave superior name, Jesus publicly renounced
all domestic claim to His particular regard.
More than once did He remind Mary, His mother,
that in His miraculous nature she did not partake;
that in the functions of His Godhead she had nothing
to do with him.”
.bn 245.png
.pn +1

The Rev. W. Valentine, rector of Whixley, perhaps
the most intimate friend Mr. Hawker had, writes to
me of him thus:—

.pm letter-start
During the first six months of my residence at Chapel
House, Morwenstow, September, 1863, to April, 1864, I and he
invariably spent our evenings together; and although for ten
weeks of that period I took the Sunday morning and evening
duties at Stratton Church, during the illness of the vicar, I
always rode round by Morwenstow vicarage on Sundays to
spend an hour with him, at his urgent request, though it took
me some miles out of my way over Stowe Hill and by Combe.
I thus got to know Mr. Hawker thoroughly, more intimately
perhaps, as to character and social habits, than any other friend
ever did; and on two important points no one will ever shake
my testimony, <i>viz.</i> (<i>a</i>) his desire to be buried by me beneath
the shadow of his own beloved church, “That grey fane, the
beacon of the Eternal Land”; and (<i>b</i>) his constant allusions to
the Roman Catholics as “Romish Dissenters”.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
But Mr. Hawker was not a theologian, nor was he
careful in the expression of his opinions. He spoke
as he thought at the moment, and he thought as
the impulse swayed him. Many of his most intimate
friends, who met him constantly during the last years
of his life, and to whom he opened his heart most
fully, are firm in their conviction that he was a sincere
member of the Church of England, believing
thoroughly in her Divine mission and authority. But
it is quite possible, that, in moments of excitement
and disappointment, to others he may have expressed
himself otherwise. He was the creature of impulse;
and his mind was never very evenly balanced, nor
did his judgment always reign paramount over his
fancies.
.bn 246.png
.pn +1

Mr. Valentine writes in another letter to me:—

.pm letter-start
I have only one sermon to send you, but to <i>me</i> it is a deeply
interesting one, as it was delivered more than once just over
the spot where he told me so often to lay him; and I feel assured
that whenever he preached it, his thoughts would wander
onward to that coming day when he himself, as he contemplated,
would form one of that last and vast assemblage which
will be gathered in Morwenstow churchyard and church. Ever
since I knew dear old Hawker, and for years before, he preached
<i>extempore</i>. His habit was to take a prayer-book into the pulpit,
and expound the Gospel for the day. He would read a verse
or two, and then with a common lead pencil, which was ever
suspended by a string from one of his coat-buttons, mark his
resting-point. Having expounded the passage, he would read
further, mark again, and expound. His clear, full voice was
most mellifluous; and his language, whilst plain and homely,
was highly poetical, and quite enchanting to listen to. He
riveted one’s whole attention. His pulpit MSS. are very rare,
because, just before taking to <i>extempore</i> preaching, “basketsful”
of his sermons were destroyed under the following circumstances,
as he used to relate it to me: A celebrated firm
of seedsmen advertised something remarkable in the way of
carrots; and Mr. Hawker, who had long made this root his
especial study, sent for some seed. He was recommended
to sow it with some of the best ashes he could procure, and
therefore brought out all his sermons one morning on to the
vicarage lawn, set fire to the pile, and carefully collected the
precious remains. The crop was an utter failure; but the cause
thereof, on reflection was most palpable. He remembered that
a few of old Dr. Hawker’s sermons were lying amongst his
own; and the conclusion forced upon him was, that his grandfather’s
heterodoxy had lost him his crop of carrots.
.pm letter-end

He refers to this destruction in another letter to
Mr. Carnsew:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>Dec.</sc> 6, 1857. <i>My dear Sir</i>,—To-morrow I send for my last
load of materials for building, the close of a long run of outlay
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
extending through nearly thirty years. Bude, Whitstone, Trebarrow,
Morwenstow, have been the scenes of my architecture.
Anderson writes that he has bought a cottage of yours. I
am glad of it for his wife’s sake. I wrote to him offering a
young pig of mine, and twelve MS. sermons, for a young boar
of the same age; and, do you know, he has taken me at my
word. So I am to send him my MSS. and to fetch the boar.
Did I ever tell you that I once dressed a drill of turnips for
experiment with sermon ashes (I had been burning a large
lot), and it was a complete failure? Barren, all barren, like
most modern discourses; not even posthumous energy.
.pm letter-end

The sermon that is spoken of by Mr. Valentine was
on the general resurrection, and was preached at the
“Revel,” Midsummer Day.

The Revel or Village Feast is—in some places
was—a great institution in Cornwall and West
Devon, held on the day of the Saint to whom the
church is dedicated.

One of his sermons which is remembered to this
day was on the text, Gen. xxii. 5: “Abide ye here
with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and
worship, and come again to you.”

He pointed out in this sermon how that in Morwenstow
and many other villages, the church is situated
at some distance from the congregation. At
Okehampton the church is on a hill, and the town
lies below it in the valley. At Brent-tor it is planted
on the apex of a volcanic cone, rising out of a high
table-land; and the cottages of which it is the parish
church lie in combes far away, skirting the moor.
At Morwenstow it stands above the sea, without a
house near it save the vicarage and one little farm.
This, said he, was no bit of mismanagement, but was
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
done purposely, that those who went up to Jerusalem
to worship might have time to compose their
thoughts, and frame their souls aright for the holy
services in which they were about to engage.

Is it a trouble to go so far? Does it cost many
paces? Yea! but an angel counts the paces that
lead to the house of God and records them all in
heaven.

“Abide ye here with the ass,” away from the hill
of the Lord, from the place of sacrifice; tarry, dumb
ass and hireling, whilst the son goes on under the
guidance of his father. The poor hireling, not one of
the family; the unbaptised, no son; and the coarse,
brutal nature, the ass—they stay away; they have
no inclination, no call to go up to the house of God.
“Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will
go yonder and worship.”
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch10
CHAPTER X
.pm ch-hd-start
The First Mrs. Hawker—Her Influence over her Husband—Anxiety about
her Health—His Fits of Depression—Letter on the Death of Sir
Thomas D. Acland—Reads Novels to his Wife—His Visions—Mysticism—Death
of his Wife—Unhappy Condition—Burning of his
Papers—Meets with his Second Wife—The Unburied Dead—Birth of
his Child—Ruinous Condition of his Church—Goes to London—Sickness—Goes
to Boscastle—To Plymouth—His Death and Funeral—Conclusion.
.pm ch-hd-end
.dc 0.3 0.7
<sc>Mrs. Hawker</sc> was a very accomplished and
charming old lady, who thoroughly understood
and appreciated her husband. She
was a woman of a poetical, refined mind, with strong
sense of humour, and sound judgment. The latter
quality was of great advantage, as it was an element
conspicuously absent in the composition of her husband.

She translated from the German, with great elegance,
the story of Guido Goerres, the <i>Manger of
the Holy Night</i>; and it was published by Burns in
1847. The verses in it were turned with grace and
facility. Another of her books was <i>Follow Me</i>, a
Morality from the German, published by Burns in
1844.

The author remembers this charming old lady
now many years ago, then blind, very aged, with
hair white as snow, full of cheerfulness and geniality,
laughing over her husband’s jokes, and drawing
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
him out with a subtle skill to show himself to his
best advantage. In his fits of depression she was
invaluable to him, always at his side, encouraging
him, directing his thoughts to pleasant topics, and
bringing merriment back to the eye which had dulled
with despondency.

.pm letter-start
<sc>Ash Wednesday, 1853.</sc> <i>My dear Mrs. M.——</i>,—Among
my acts of self-research to-day one has regarded you, the wife
of one of the very few whom I would really call my friends.
Since my days of sorrow came, and self-abasement, I have
shrunk too much into myself, and too much regarded the
breath that is in the nostrils of my fellows. But what have I
not been made to suffer? But—and I have sworn it as a vow—if
my God grants me the life of poor dear Charlotte, all shall
be borne cheerfully. Beyond that horizon I have not a hope, a
thought, a prayer. And now I feel relieved at having written
this. It lifts a load to tell it to you, as I should long ago to
your guileless husband had he been here to listen. But he is
gone to be happier than we, and would wonder, if he read this,
why I grieve. And then how basely have those who vaunted
themselves as my friends dealt with me! All this I unfold to
you for my relief. Do you please not to say a word about
... or anything to vex or harass Charlotte. She is, I thank
God, well and quiet. We hardly ever go out, save for exercise,
in the parish. My thoughts go down in MS., of which I have
drawers full. But I print no more.
.pm letter-end

The friend to whose widow he thus writes died in
1846. He then wrote to a relative this note of
sympathy:—

.pm letter-start
Your letter has filled us with deep and sincere sorrow.
We feared that our friend was sincerely ill, but we were not
prepared for so immediate an accession of grief. That he
was ready to be dissolved, I doubt not, and to be with Christ
I am equally satisfied. He, already, I trust, prays for us all
effectually.
.pm letter-end
.bn 251.png
.pn +1

There was ever a sad undertone in Mr. Hawker’s
character. He felt his isolation in mind from all
around him. His best companions were the waves
and clouds. He lived “the ever alone,” as he calls
himself in one of his letters, solitary in the Morwenstow
ark, with only the sound of waters about him.
“The Lord shut him in.”

With all his brightness and vivacity, there was
constantly “cropping up” a sad and serious vein,
which showed itself sometimes in a curious fashion.
“This is as life seems to you,” he would say, as he
bade his visitor look at the prospect through a pane
of ruby-tinted glass, “all glowing and hopeful. And
this is as I see it,” he would add, turning to a pane
of yellow, “grey and wintry and faded. But keep
your ruby days as long as you can.”

He wrote on 2nd Jan., 1868:—

.pm letter-start
Wheresoever you may be, this letter will follow you, and
with it our best and most earnest prayers for your increased
welfare of earthly and heavenly hopes in this and many
succeeding New Years. How solemn a thing it is to stand
before the gate of another year, and ask the oracles what will
this ensuing cluster of the months unfold! But, if we knew,
perhaps it would make life what a Pagan Greek called it, “a
shuddering thing.” We have had, through the approach to
us of the Gulf Stream, with its atmospheric arch of warm and
rarefied air, a sad succession of cyclones, or, as our homely
phrase renders it, “shattering sou’westers,” reminding us of
what was said to be the Cornish wreckers’ toast in bygone
days:—

.nf b
“A billowy sea and a shattering wind,
The cliffs before, and the gale behind,”
.nf-
.ni
but, thank God, no wrecks yet on our iron shore.
.pm letter-end

.bn 252.png
.pn +1
.pi
The following letter was written to Mrs. Mills,
daughter of Sir Thomas D. Acland, on the death of
her father; a letter which will touch the hearts of
many a “West Country man” who has loved his
honoured name.

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, July 27, 1861. <i>My dear Mrs. Mills</i>,—The
knowledge of your great anguish at Killerton has only just
reached us. How deeply we feel it, I need not tell: although
long looked for, it smote me like a sudden blow. Yet we must
not mourn “for him, but for ourselves and our children.” “It
shall come to pass, at eventide there shall be light.” The good
and faithful servant had borne the burden and the heat of the
day; and at set of sun he laid him down and slept. My heart
and my eyes are too full to write. May his God and our God
bless and sustain yours and you! My poor dear wife, who is ill,
offers you her faithful love; and I shall pray this night for him
who is gone before, and for those who tarry yet a little while.
I am, dear Mrs. Mills, yours faithfully and affectionately,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end

During his wife’s blindness and the gentle fading
away of a well-spent, God-fearing life, nothing could
be more unremitting than the attention of Mr.
Hawker. He read to her a great part of the day,
brought her all the news of the neighbourhood, strove
in every way to make up to her for the deprivation
of her sight.

He had a ten-guinea subscription to Mudie’s
Library, and whole boxes of novels arrived at the
vicarage; these he diligently read to her as she sat,
her arm-chair wheeled to the window out of which
she could no more see, or by the fireside where the
logs flickered.

But though he read with his lips and followed with
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
his eyes, his eager mind was far away in that wondrous
dreamland where his mental life was spent. After
he had diligently read through the three volumes of
some popular novel, he was found to be ignorant of
the plot, to know nothing of the characters, and to
have no conception even of the names of hero and
heroine. These stories interested him in no way:
they related to a world of which he knew little, and
cared less. Whilst he read, his mind was following
some mystic weaving of a dance, in the air, of gulls
and swallows; tracing parables in the flowers that
dotted his sward; or musing over some text of Holy
Scripture. To be on the face of his cliff, to sit hour
by hour in his little hut of wreck-wood, with the
boiling Atlantic before him, sunk in dream or meditation,
was his delight. Or, kneeling in his gloomy
chancel, poring over the sacred page, meditating, he
would go off into strange trances, and see sights:
Morwenna, gleaming before him with pale face,
exquisitely beautiful, and golden hair, and deep blue
eyes, telling him where she lay, drawing him on to
chivalrous love, like Aslauga in Fouqué’s exquisite
tale. Or, he saw angels ascending and descending
in his dark chancel, and heard “a noise of hymns.”

.pm verse-start
A gentle sound, an awful light!
  Three angels bear the holy Grail.
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
  On sleeping wings they sail.

Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
  My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
  And star-like mingles with the stars.
.pm verse-end
.bn 254.png
.pn +1

We have seen hitherto the sparkling merriment of
his life; but this was the surging of the surface of a
character that rolled on its mysterious, unfathomable
way.

To him the spiritual world was intensely real: he
had in him the makings of a mystic. The outward
world, the carnal flesh, he looked upon with contempt,
with almost the disgust of a Manichæan. The spiritual
life was the real life: the earthly career was a
passing, troubled dream, that teased the soul, and
broke its contemplations. The true aim of man was
to disentangle his soul from the sordid cares of earth,
and to raise it on the wings of meditation and prayer
to union with God. Consequently the true self is
the spiritual man: this none but the spiritual man
can understand. The vicar accommodated himself
to ordinary society, but he did not belong to it. His
spirit hovered high above in the thin, clear air, whilst
his body and earthly mind laughed, and joked, and
laboured, and sorrowed below. Trouble was the
anguish of the soul recalling its prerogative. The
fits of depression which came on him were the
moments when the soul was asserting its true power,
pining as the captive for its home and proper freedom.

It will be seen that nothing but his intense grasp
of the doctrine of the Incarnation saved him from
drifting into the wildest vagaries of mysticism.

He would never open out to any one who he thought
was not spiritually minded.

A commonplace neighbouring parson, visiting him
once, asked him what were his views and opinions.
.bn 255.png
.pn +1

Mr. Hawker drew him to the window. “There,”
said he, “is Hennacliff, there the Atlantic stretching
to Labrador, there Morwenstow crag, here the church
and graves: these are my views. As to my opinions,
I keep them to myself.”

The flame, after long flickering in the breast of his
dearly loved wife, went out at length on 2nd Feb.,
1863. She died at the age of eighty-one.

He had a grave—a double grave—made outside
the chancel, beside the stone that marks where an
ancient priest of Morwenstow lies, and placed over
her a stone with this inscription:—
.sp 1
.nf c
HERE RESTS THE BODY OF

<l>CHARLOTTE E. HAWKER,</l>

FOR NEARLY FORTY YEARS THE WIFE OF ONE OF THE
VICARS OF THIS CHURCH.

<sc>She died Feb. 2, 1863.</sc>

<s>There is sprung up a light for the righteous, and joyful gladness
for such as are true-hearted.</s>
.nf-
.sp 1
The text had reference to her blindness.

At the bottom of the stone is a blank space left
for his own name, and a place was made by his own
orders at the side of his wife for his own body.

.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Oct. 16, 1864. <i>My dear Mrs. M——</i>,—I have
intended every day to make an effort, and go down to Bude to
see you, and to thank you for all your kindness to me in my
desolate abode; but I am quite unequal to the attempt. If you
return next year, and you will come, you will find me, if I am
alive, keeping watch and ward humbly and faithfully by the
place where my dead wife still wears her ring in our quiet
church. If I am gone, I know you will come and stand by the
stone where we rest. My kindest love to Mr. M—— and your
happy little children.
.pm letter-end

.bn 256.png
.pn +1
.sp 1
After the death of Mrs. Hawker, he fell into a
condition of piteous depression. He moped about
the cliffs, or in his study, and lost interest in everything.
Sciatica added to his misery; and to relieve
this he had recourse to opium.

He took it into his head that he could eat nothing
but clotted cream. He therefore made his meals,
breakfast, dinner and tea, of this. He became consequently
exceedingly bilious, and his depression grew
the greater.

He was sitting, crying like a child, one night over
his papers, when there shot a spark from the fire
among those strewn at his feet. He did not notice
it particularly, but went to bed. After he had gone
to sleep, his papers were in a flame: the flame communicated
itself to a drawer full of MSS., which he
had pulled out, and not thrust into its place again;
and the house would probably have been burnt down,
had not a Methodist minister seen the blaze through
the window, as he happened to be on the hill opposite.
He gave the alarm, the inmates of the vicarage were
aroused, and the fire was arrested.

Probably much of his MS. poetry, and jottings of
ideas passing through his head, were thus lost. “Oh,
dear!” was his sad cry, “if Charlotte had been here
this would never have happened.”

The vicar had brain fever shortly afterwards, and
was in danger; but he gradually recovered.

.if h
.il fn=p248a.jpg w=600px
.ca
MORWENSTOW PARISH CHURCH.
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
.in 8
.ti -4
[Illustration: MORWENSTOW PARISH CHURCH.]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-

.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=p248b.jpg w=430px
.ca
ANCIENT FONT IN MORWENSTOW CHURCH.
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
.in 8
.ti -4
[Illustration: ANCIENT FONT IN MORWENSTOW CHURCH.]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-

.if h
.il fn=p248c.jpg w=487px
.ca
“PARSON HAWKER,” OF MORWENSTOW.
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
.in 8
.ti -4
[Illustration: “PARSON HAWKER,” OF MORWENSTOW.]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-

.if h
.il fn=p248d.jpg w=600px
.ca
THE CHURCH AND VICARAGE, MORWENSTOW.
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
.in 8
.ti -4
[Illustration: THE CHURCH AND VICARAGE, MORWENSTOW.]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-

A friend tells me that during the time that he was
a widower, the condition he was in was most sad.
His drawing-room, which used to be his delight, full
of old oak furniture, and curiosities from every corner
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
.bn 259.png
.pn +1
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
of the world, was undusted and neglected. The servants,
no longer controlled by a mistress, probably
did not attend properly to the comforts of the master.

However, a new interest grew up in his heart. It
was fortunate that matters did not remain long in
this condition. It was neither well nor wise that the
old man should linger on the rest of his days without
a “helpmeet for him,” to attend to his comforts, be
a companion in his solitude, and a solace in his fits
of depression. The Eastern Church is very strong
against the second marriage of priests. No man
who has had a second wife is admitted by the orthodox
communion to holy orders. But Mr. Hawker
was about, and very fortunately for his own comfort,
in this matter to shake off the trammels of his
Orientalism.

Previous to the death of his first wife, he had some
good stories to tell of men, who, when the first wife
was dead, forgot her speedily for a second. One
belongs to the Cornish moors, and may therefore be
here inserted.

A traveller was on his way over the great dorsal
moorland that runs the length of Cornwall. He had
lost his way. It was a time of autumn equinoctial
storm. The day declined, and nothing was to be
seen save sweeps of moor, broken only by huge
masses of granite; not a church tower broke the
horizon, not a dog barked from a distant farm.

After long and despairing wanderings in search of
a road or house, the traveller was about to proceed
to a pile of granite, and bury himself among the
rocks for shelter during the night, when a sudden
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
burst of revelry smote his ear from the other side
of the hill. He hasted with beating heart in the
direction whence came the sounds, and soon found a
solitary house, in which all the inhabitants were
making merry. He asked admission and a lodging
for the night. He was invited in, and given a hearty
welcome. The owner of the house had just been
married, and brought home his bride. The house,
therefore, could furnish him with plenty of food;
saffron cakes abounded: but a bed was not to be
had, as brothers and cousins had been invited, and
the only place where the traveller could be accommodated
was a garret. This was better than a bed on
the moor, and the stormy sky for the roof; and he
accepted the offer with eagerness.

After the festivities of the evening were over, he
retired to his attic, and lay down on a bed of hay,
shaken for him on the floor. But he could not sleep.
The moon shone in through a pane of glass let into
the roof, and rested on a curious old chest which
was thrust away in a corner. Somehow or other,
this chest engrossed his attention, and excited his
imagination. It was of carved oak, and handsome.
Why was it put away in a garret? What did it
contain? He became agitated and nervous. He
thought he heard a sigh issue from it. He sat up on
the hay, and trembled. Still the moonbeam streaked
the long black box.

Again his excited fancy made him believe he heard
a sigh issue from it. Unable to endure suspense any
longer, he stole across the floor to the side of the
garret where stood the box, and with trembling hand
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
he raised the lid. The moonbeam fell on the face of
a dead woman, lying in her winding-sheet in the
chest. He let the lid drop with a scream of fear,
and fainted away. When he came to himself, the bride
and bridegroom, brothers and cousins, surrounded
him in the attic, in somewhat <i>dégagé</i> costume, as they
had tumbled from their beds, in alarm at the shriek
which had awakened them.

“What is it? What have you seen?” was asked
on all sides.

“In that chest,” gasped the traveller, “I saw a
corpse!”

There was a pause. Slowly—for the mind of an
agriculturist takes time to act—the bridegroom
arrived at a satisfactory explanation. His face
remained for three minutes clouded with thought,
as he opened and explored the various chambers of
memory. At length a gleam of satisfaction illumed
his countenance, and he broke into a laugh and an
explanation at once. “Lor’, you needn’t trouble
yourself: its only my first wife as died last Christmas.
You see, the moors were covered with snow,
and the land frozen, so we couldn’t take her to be
buried at Camelford, and accordingly <i>we salted her in</i>
till the thaw shu’d come; <i>and I’m darned if I hadn’t
forgotten all about her</i>, and the old gal’s never been
buried yet.”

“So, you see,” Mr. Hawker would say, when telling
the story, “in Cornwall we do things differently
from elsewhere. It is on record that the second wife
is wedded before the first wife is buried.”

There is a Devonshire version of this story told
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
of Dartmoor; but it wants the point of the Cornish
tale.

The Rev. W. Valentine, vicar of Whixley in Yorkshire,
bought Chapel House, in the parish, in the
October of 1863, and, having obtained two years’
leave of absence from the Bishop of Ripon, came
there into residence. He brought with him, as
governess to his children, a young Polish lady, Miss
Kuczynski. Her father had been a Polish noble,
educated at the Jesuit University of Wilna, who,
having been mixed up with one of the periodical
revolts against Russian domination, had been obliged
to fly his native country and take refuge in England.
He received a pension from the British Government,
and office under the Master of the Rolls. He married
a Miss Newton, and by her had two children, Stanislaus
and Pauline.

On the death of Count Kuczynski, his widow
married a Mr. Stevens, an American merchant. He
lost greatly by the war between the Northern and
Southern States, and Miss Kuczynski was obliged to
enter the family of an English clergyman as governess
to his children.

Mr. Hawker, as vicar of the parish in which Chapel
stands, made the acquaintance of this lady of birth
and education. A sunbeam shone into his dark,
troubled life, and lighted it with hope. He was
married to her in December, 1864, “by a concurrence
of events manifestly providential,” he wrote to a dear
friend. “Her first position was in the family of Mr.
Valentine, who so recently arrived in my parish of
Morwenstow. There I saw and understood her
.bn 269.png
.pn +1
character; but it was not her graceful person and
winning demeanour that so impressed me, as her
strong intellect, high principle and similitude of
tastes with my own. She won my people before she
won me; and it was a saying among my simple-hearted
parishioners: ‘Oh, if Miss Kuczynski would
but be mistress at vicarage!’ Her friends, as was
natural, objected to the marriage; but I went to town,
saw them, and returned hither Pauline’s husband.”

His marriage had a good effect on him immediately.
He for a time gave up opium-eating. His
spirits rose, and he seemed to be entirely, supremely
happy.

In November, 1865, he was given a daughter, to
be the light and joy of his eyes. He says in a letter
dated 30th Nov., 1865:—

.pm letter-start
The kind interest you have taken in us induces me to think
that you may be glad to hear, that, just before midnight on
Monday, I was given a daughter—a fair and gentle child, who
has not up to this time uttered a single peevish sound. As is
very natural, I think her one of the loveliest infants I ever took
in my arms. Both child and mother are going on very well,
and the happiness which the event has brought to my house is
indeed a blessing. The baby’s name is to be Morwenna
Pauline.
.pm letter-start

A second daughter was afterwards given to him,
Rosalind; and then a third, who was baptised Juliot,
after a sister of St. Morwenna, who had a cell and
founded a church near Boscastle. The arrival of
these heaven-given treasures, however, filled the old
man’s mind with anxiety for the future. The earth
must soon close over him; and he would leave a
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
widow and three helpless orphans on the world,
without being able to make any provision for them.
This preyed on his mind during the last year or two
of his life. It was a cloud which hung over him, and
never was lifted off. As he walked, he moaned to
himself. He saw no possibility of securing them a
future of comfort and a home. He could not shake
the thought off him: it haunted him day and night.

His church also was fallen into a piteous condition
of disrepair: the wooden shingle wherewith he had
roofed it some years before was rotten, and let in
the water in streams. The pillars were green with
lichen, the side of the tower bulged, and discoloured
water oozed forth. A portion of the plaster of the
ceiling fell; storms tore out the glass of his windows.

In 1872 he sent forth the following appeal to all
his friends:—
.sp 1
.fs 85%
.in 4
.nf c
Jesus said: “Ye have done it unto me!”
.nf-
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
The ancient church of Morwenstow, on the northern shore
of Cornwall, notwithstanding a large outlay of the present vicar,
has fallen into dilapidation and disrepair. A great part of the
oak shingle roof requires to be relaid. The walls must be
painted anew, and the windows, benches and floor ought to be
restored. To fulfil all these purposes, a sum amounting to at
least £500 will be required. In the existing state of the
Church-rate law, it would be inexpedient and ineffectual to
rely on the local succour of the parishioners, although there
is reason to confide that the usual levy of a penny in the
pound per annum (sixteen pounds), now granted in aid of other
resources, would never be withheld. But this church, from
the interest attached to its extreme antiquity and its striking
features of ecclesiastical attraction, is visited every year by
one or two hundred strangers from distant places, and from
Bude Haven in the immediate neighbourhood. It appears,
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
therefore, to the vicar and his friends, that an appeal for the
sympathy and the succour of all who value and appreciate the
solemn beauty and the sacred associations of such a scene
might happily be fraught with success. A committee, to consist
of the vicar and churchwardens, of J. Tarratt, Esq., late
of Chapel House, Morwenstow, and W. Rowe, Esq., solicitor,
Stratton, will superintend the disposal of the contributions,
under the control of a competent builder, and account to the
subscribers for their outlay.

And the benediction of God the Trinity will assuredly
requite every kindly heart and generous hand that shall help
to restore this venerable sanctuary of the Tamar side.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
A voluntary rate raised £32; and offertory, £2 2<i>s.</i>
10-1/2<i>d.</i>; and he had donations of about £150 from
various friends.

In 1874 he went to London for his health. He
was very much broken then, suffering in his heart
and from sciatica. At the same time he resolved to
preach in such churches as were open to him, for the
restoration fund of St. Morwenna’s sanctuary.

He wrote to me on the subject:—

.pm letter-start
<sc>16 Harley Road, South Hampstead</sc>, April 20, 1874.
<i>My dear Sir</i>,—I am here in quest of medical aid for my wife
and myself. I am so far better that I can preach, and I am
trying to get offertories here for the restoration of my grand
old Morwenstow Church. Only one has been granted me thus
far—last night at St. Matthias, Brompton, where I won an
evening offertory “with my sword and with my bow,” twenty-two
pounds eighteen shillings, whereas the average for two
years at evensong has been under five pounds. But I find the
great clergy shy to render me the loan of their pulpits. Do
you know any one of them? Can you help me? And about
St. Morwenna. Cannot I see your proof sheets of my <i>Saint’s
Life</i>, or can you in any way help me in the delivery of her
legend to London ears? At all events, do write. I seem
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
nearer to you here than at home. If you come up, do find us
out. I write in haste.
.ti 10
Yours faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end

The previous October he had written to me from
his “sick-room, to which I have been confined with
eczema for full two months.” In November he
wrote: “Ten days in bed helpless.” I had been in
correspondence with him about St. Morwenna <i>not</i>
being identical with St. Modwenna; his answer was:
“I have twice received supernatural intimation of her
identity, by dream and suggestion.” Such an answer
was clearly not that of a man of well-balanced mind.

.pm letter-start
<sc>16 Harley Road, Hampstead</sc>, March 10, 1874. <i>My dear
Mrs. M——</i>,—You may well be astonished at my address; but
our journey hither was a matter of life or death to both of us,
and so far I am the only gainer. Dr. Goodfellow, after a rigid
scrutiny, has pronounced me free from any perilous organic
disease, and is of opinion that with rest and a few simple
remedies, “there is work in me yet”....
.ti 10
Yours faithfully,
.ti 15
<sc>R. S. Hawker</sc>.
.pm letter-end

But the grand old man was breaking. There was
pain of body, and much mental anxiety about his
family. He could not sleep at night: his brain was
constantly excited by his pecuniary troubles, and the
sufferings he endured from his malady. By the
advice of his doctor, I believe, it was that he had
recourse to narcotics to allay the pain, and procure
him rest at night. Mr. C. Hawker wrote to me:—

.pm letter-start
Towards the close of his life, my brother (I am grieved to
state it) renewed a habit he had contracted on the death of his
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
first wife, but had abandoned—of taking opium. This had a
most injurious effect on his nerves: it violently excited him for
a while, and then cast him into fits of the most profound depression.
When under this influence he wrote and spoke in the
wildest and most unreasonable manner, and said things which
in moments of calmer judgment, I am sure, he bitterly deplored.
He would at times work himself into the greatest excitement
about the most trivial matters, over which he would laugh in
his more serene moments.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Whilst Mr. Hawker was in London, he called one
day on some very kind friends, who had a house in
Bude, but were then in town. Mrs. M——, thinking
that the old man would be troubled at being away
from his books, very considerately offered to lend
him any from her own library which he might take
a fancy to read. But he said: “All I want is a reference
Bible. If I have that I care for no other books.”
And he carried off a Bagster’s Polyglot that lay on
the table.

From London Mr. Hawker returned to Morwenstow,
to fresh suffering, disappointment, and
anxieties. I give a few of his last letters to one
whom he regarded as his best friend.
.sp 1
.pm letter-start
<sc>Morwenstow</sc>, Sept. 22, 1874. <i>My dear Valentine</i>,—You
brought to my house the solitary blessing of my life. My three
daughters came to me through you, as God’s instrument. I
must write to you. You will not have many more letters from
me.... My mind has been so racked and softened that I shall
never be myself again. My health, too, is gone. My legs
are healed, but the long drain has enfeebled me exceedingly.
Money terrors, too, have reached a climax. I have so many
claims upon me, that I cannot regard my home as sure, nor my
roof certain to shelter my dear ones. On the school-building
account I am responsible for seventy pounds odd, more than I
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
have collected from subscribers.... I have to pay the master
twelve pounds ten shillings quarterly. But there is one thing
more—the curate, whom I must have, for I cannot go on
serving both churches as I do now, with daily service here.
T——, and his mother, will give me one-half, or nearly his
salary. But besides Dean Lodge there is no house that he
can live in. Let him rent it until you sell it. I implore you,
grant this last kindness to me whom you once called a friend.
My heart is broken. It is a favour you will not have to grant
me long, as my pausing pulse and my shuddering heart testify.
Oh, God bless you!
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Mr. Valentine came to Chapel House, Morwenstow,
in October, 1874, and renewed his old warm friendship
with the vicar. Had there been any change in
the views of Mr. Hawker, it would certainly have
been made known to his most intimate friend of
many years. But Mr. Valentine found him the same
in faith, though sadly failing in mental and bodily
power.

.pm letter-start
Nov. 13, 1874. <i>My dear Valentine</i>,—You will be sorry to
hear that over-anxieties and troubles are incessant. First of
all, no curate. A Mr. H—— came down from Torquay. He
had all but agreed to come, but when he saw Dean Lodge he
declined. He thought it too far to walk to church. I have
advertised in three papers, but only one applicant. I have
invited him to come and see for himself, but he has not yet
appeared or written. We are so remote and forlorn that unless
a man be very <i>sincere and honest</i> there is no inducement. No
sphere for strut or grimace, or other vanity. Another trouble
that we have is scarlet and typhus fever both, in several parts
of the parish.... And now I am compelled to remind you
that you promised me this month your subscriptions to our
charities. I want to pay the schoolmaster, this next week, his
quarter’s salary. This will make the adverse balance run to
nearly fifty pounds against me. It is most ruinous. Upon the
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
school-building account I am responsible for sixty-eight pounds
beyond the subscriptions....

What a life this is to lead in the flesh! Mine has been
indeed a martyrdom.
.sp 2
Nov. 17, 1874. <i>My dear Valentine</i>,[#].... One part of your
letter has troubled our earnest hope. If you would but fulfil
your suggestion, and come to Dean Lodge, the advantages to
me would be incalculable. You would not, I know, object to
help me in the church once a Sunday. I cannot, by any effort,
obtain a curate. The work—thrice a day on Sunday—is killing
me, and your presence would soothe the dreadful depression
into which I am sinking fast. Make any effort, I do entreat
you, to come. The cry after your last appearance in church[#]
was, that no sermon had been heard in church for a long
time equal to yours: not very complimentary to me, but
that I don’t mind. Come! anything you want at Dean, that
we have, you are most welcome to have from us. Your presence
in the parish will be ample compensation. Come, I do
entreat you, and gladden us by deciding at once, and telling us
so. I shall have hope then of getting over the winter, which
now I cannot realise. My great terror is that I have all but
lost the power of sleep. I cannot rest in bed quietly above two
or three hours. Now, it would be cruel to awaken hope, and
crush it again. You shall have horses and carriage, and anything
you want.
.pm letter-end
.pm fn-start
Then returned to Yorkshire.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
In the previous month, October.
.pm fn-end

At Christmas he was very ill, and thought that
life’s last page was being turned, and that before the
daisies reappeared in Morwenstow churchyard he
would be resting in his long home.

But he got slowly better. On 28th April, 1875, he
was still in trouble about a curate, and wrote to Mr.
Valentine, begging him to allow him to take Dean
Lodge, and make it a cottage for his curate. “Write
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
to me at once,” he said, “to relieve my poor broken
mind of one of the <i>pressures</i> which are now dragging
it down. Pray write immediately, because my second
letter must have apprised you how unable I am in my
present shattered state. And mind, I rely on you
for standing by me in these, my last trials.”

In June Mr. Hawker went for change, with his
wife and children, and a lady, the companion of Mrs.
Hawker, who was staying with them, to Boscastle,
to visit his brother at Penally.

Did any prevision of what would take place pass
before his mind’s eye ere he left his beloved Morwenstow?
Had he any thought that he was taking
his last look at the quiet combe, with its furze and
heather slopes, the laughing, sparkling, blue sea that
lashed the giant cliffs on which St. Morwenna had
planted her foot, cross in hand? We cannot tell.
It is certain that it had been all along his wish to lay
him down to rest in his old church. The grave made
for his wife was, by his orders, made double; a space
was left on the stone for his name; and he often,
at all events before his second marriage, spoke of his
desire to be laid there, and made a friend promise,
that, should he by accident die away from Morwenstow,
he would fetch his body, and lay him there.

When he heard that it was illegal to be buried
inside the church, he pointed out a place under the
east wall of his chancel where he wished to be laid;
but he hoped that, owing to the remoteness of Morwenstow,
no difficulty would be raised about his
being laid in the grave he had prepared for himself
in the church where he had ministered so long.
.bn 277.png
.pn +1

However, later on, he often quoted St. Monica’s
last prayer: “Lay my body anywhere—only do
not forget to remember me at the altar of God.”

Is it to be wondered at, that now there are Morwenstow
people who say, that, since his death, they
have seen the old man standing at the head of the
stone that covers his wife, looking mournfully at the
blank space where he had hoped his name would be
cut; and that others, who have not seen him, aver
that they have heard his familiar sighs and moans
from the same spot?

Whilst he was at Boscastle he was neither mentally
nor bodily himself. His brother, Mr. Claud Hawker,
wrote to me that he was often in a state approaching
stupor. “When he came down here in August
he was very ill, and certainly broken in his mind,
nearly all the time he was here: he was often in a
scarce-conscious state.”

Whilst Mr. Hawker and family were staying at
Penally, Mr. Claud Hawker fell ill, and it was necessary
for them to move out of the house. Mr. Robert
Hawker would have returned to Morwenstow, had
not the curate been in the vicarage: then he wished
to take lodgings at Boscastle, but was persuaded by
Mrs. Hawker to go to Plymouth.

His brother wrote to me: “Robert came down to
see me ill in bed. I was ill at the time; but I could
see he was not like himself in any way, and it was no
act of his to go to Plymouth. He declined to do so
for some time, until at last, most reluctantly, and
against his better judgment, he was persuaded to do
so.”
.bn 278.png
.pn +1

On the other hand, Miss E. Newton says that the
visit to Plymouth was a planned thing, as Mr.
Hawker was desirous of medical advice there.

They left on 29th June, and took lodgings in Lockyer
Street, Plymouth. Mr. Robert S. Hawker was still
very ill and failing.

The Rev. Prebendary Thynne, rector of Kilkhampton,
a near and attached friend of sixteen years,
was in Plymouth not long before the end, and saw
the vicar of Morwenstow. He was then agitated
because he had not been able to be present at the
Bishop of Exeter’s visitation at Stratton, fearing lest
the bishop should take it as a slight. The rector of
Kilkhampton quieted him by assuring him that the
bishop knew how ill he was, and that he was away
for change of air. Then he brightened up a little,
but he was anything but himself.

The curate of Kilkhampton wrote to me: “Mr.
Hawker complained that we had not invited him to a
retreat held by one of the Cowley Missioners in the
same month in which he died. Of course we knew
that he could not have come, and so did not ask him.
But surely his making a kind of grievance of it is
hardly consistent with the idea that even at that time
he was in heart a Roman Catholic.”

On Sunday, 1st Aug., Mr. Hawker went with his
wife to St. James Church, Plymouth, for morning
service. The service was choral, and he much
enjoyed it. Mrs. Hawker saw him home, and then
went on to the Roman Catholic Cathedral, to high
mass; and in the evening he accompanied her to
benediction, and was pleased with the beauty of the
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
service, which to him had all the attractions of
novelty, as he had never travelled abroad, and so was
unfamiliar with Roman Catholic ritual. The church
was very solemn, and nicely cared for; and benediction
is one of the most touching, popular and elastic
of services.

He was so pleased, that he said he should be quite
happy to spend a night in the church.

During the week he began to fail rapidly, and on
Friday spent the greater part of the day on his bed.
He suffered from great mental prostration. One
evening he was got out of the house as far as to the
Laira, a beautiful creek with the Saltram woods
beyond, touching the water; but he was too weak in
body and depressed in mind to go out for exercise
again.

Feeling himself growing weaker, and, as Mrs.
Hawker wrote to his niece, “with the truth really
beginning to dawn upon him,” he became nervously
impatient to get away from Plymouth as speedily as
possible, and to return to the home he loved, hallowed
by the feet of St. Morwenna, and rendered dear to
him by the associations of more than forty years.

But before he left Plymouth, when all had been
ordered to be in readiness for departure, and notice
had been given that the lodgings would be left the
ensuing week, a curious occurrence took place. His
beloved St. Cuthbert’s stole was sent for from Morwenstow,
and a biretta, a distinctively priest’s cap,
was borrowed for him—a thing he never wore himself—and
he had himself photographed in cassock,
surplice, stole and biretta, as a priest. It was his
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
last conscious act; and it is certainly very inconsistent
with the supposition that at the time he
disbelieved in his Orders. This photograph was
taken on Saturday, 7th Aug.: on Monday, 9th
Aug., he was struck down with paralysis.

His action in this matter was the more extraordinary,
as he had at one time manifested an extreme
repugnance to having his likeness taken. He has
told me himself that he would have inscribed on his
tombstone: “Here lies the man who was never photographed.”
For a long time he stubbornly refused
the most earnest requests to be taken; and his
repugnance was only overcome, at last, by Mrs.
Mills bringing over a photographer from Bude, in
her carriage, to Morwenstow, and insisting on having
him stand to be taken.[#]
.pm fn-start
The photographs taken on this occasion were by Mr. Thorn of Bude
Haven. The most admirable one is of Mr. Hawker standing in his
porch to receive visitors. He was, however, afterwards taken by
Mr. Thorn at Bude, with his wife and children. That of him in
surplice and stole is by Mr. Hawke of Plymouth.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
It was the old man’s last act, and it was a very
emphatic and significant one. The photograph was
taken on the very day on which Mrs. Hawker represented
him as seeing that his end was drawing nigh.
Every preparation was made for departure, the boxes
were packed, and all was ready, on Monday; his
impatience to be gone rapidly growing.

Mrs. Hawker wrote to his nephew at Whitstone,
eight miles from Stratton, to say that they would
lunch with him on Tuesday, the 10th, on their way
back from Plymouth to Morwenstow, intending to
drive the distance in the day.
.bn 281.png
.pn +1

He never came, nor was the reason known till it
was too late for his nephew to see him.

On Monday evening, when all was ready for departure
on the morrow, about seven o’clock, Mrs.
Hawker saw her husband’s left hand turn dead,
white and cold. Perceiving that he had a paralytic
stroke, she sent immediately for a surgeon. On the
morrow, Tuesday, the day on which the old man’s
face was to have been turned homewards, it became
evident that his face was set to go towards a happier
and an eternal home.

It was then clear that there was no return for him
to Morwenstow; and the lodgings were taken on for
another week, which would probably see the close of
the scene.

On that evening Mrs. Hawker wrote to his sister,
Mrs. Kingdon, a very aged lady at Holsworthy, to
tell her that her brother had had a stroke, and that
the medical attendant had “forbid him doing any
duty if he goes back to Morwenstow.... Of course
the knowledge that he can be no longer of use at
Morwenstow is a terrible blow to his mind.” She
also requested Mrs. Kingdon to keep his sickness a
profound secret from every one. At Whitstone he
was in vain expected, day after day, for lunch. Nor
were his brother and niece at Boscastle aware that
his illness was serious, and that life was ebbing fast
away, till all was over.

Mr. Claud Hawker informed me that even on that
Tuesday, when he learned that he must not take
duty again in his loved church, he was restless to be
off, and would not have the things unpacked. On
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
that day one of the arteries of the left arm with the
pulse had stopped. On Wednesday the companion
of Mrs. Hawker, who helped to nurse him, was satisfied
that he knew her, and seemed to be pleased with
her attentions. His wife ministered to him with the
most devoted tenderness, and would allow no hired
nurse near him, nor even one of the servants of the
house to invade the room, so jealous is love of lavishing
all its powers on the object of affection. On
Thursday his pulse was weaker, and consciousness
scarcely manifested itself. His solicitor from Stratton
had been telegraphed for, and arrived on that
day: he was informed by Mrs. Hawker that her
husband was quite unconscious, and not fit to see
any one. Understanding that there was no chance
of Mr. Hawker recovering sufficiently to discuss final
arrangements of money affairs, and that it was therefore
useless to stay in Plymouth, he returned to
Stratton.

Mrs. Hawker and her friend, finding themselves
unable to raise the sick man in bed, sent for his
servant-man from Morwenstow; and he arrived on
Friday. His master recognised him, and gave tokens
of pleasure at seeing him at his side. The same
evening he knew the medical man who attended him,
and said a word or two to him in a faint whisper;
but his brain was in part paralysed, and he hovered
between consciousness and torpor, like a flickering
flame, or the state of a man between sleeping and
waking.

On Saturday morning Mrs. Hawker informed him
that she was going to send for the Roman Catholic
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
Canon Mansfield to see him. She believed that he
seemed pleased; and, as so often happens shortly
before death, a slight rally appeared to have taken
place. According to her statement she sent for the
priest at his request. Mrs. Hawker, herself, was not,
however, received into the Roman Catholic communion
till after his death.

During the day he murmured familiar psalms and
the “Te Deum.”[#]
.pm fn-start
Through the kindness of Mr. Hawker’s relatives, I have been
furnished with every letter that passed on the subject of his
death, and reception into Roman communion. In not one of them is
it asserted that he asked to have Canon Mansfield sent for: the
last expression of a wish was, that he might go back to
Morwenstow.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
In the evening at half-past eight o’clock he was
visited. He was in a comatose condition; and, if
able to recognise his visitor, it was only that the
recognition might fade away instantaneously, and he
lapsed again into a condition of torpor.

It was then clear that Mr. Hawker had not many
hours to live. At ten o’clock at night Canon Mansfield
was introduced into the dying man’s chamber;
and the sacraments of baptism, penance, extreme
unction and communion, four in all, were administered
in succession.

During the night his groans were very distressing,
and seemed to indicate that he was in great suffering.
At eight o’clock next morning he was lifted up in
his bed to take a cup of tea, with bread sopped in it.
A change passed over his face, and he was laid gently
back on the pillow, when his spirit fled.

.pm verse-start
Youth, manhood, old age, past,
Come to thy God at last!
.pm verse-end
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
The funeral took place on Wednesday, 18th August.
The body had been transferred to the Roman Catholic
Cathedral the night before. At 10 <sc>A.M.</sc> a solemn
requiem mass was sung by the Very Rev. Canon
Woollet, the vicar-general of the titular diocese.
Around the coffin were six lighted candles, and a
profusion of flowers.

During the playing of the “Dead March in Saul,”
and the tolling of the church bell, the coffin was removed
to the hearse, to be conveyed to the Plymouth
cemetery. The coffin was of oak, with a plain brass
cross on it, and bore the inscription:—
.sp 1
.nf c
<l>ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER.</l>

FOR FORTY-ONE YEARS VICAR OF MORWENSTOW,

<s>WHO DIED IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH,
ON THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION OF OUR BLESSED LADY,

1875.</s>

<sc>Requiescat in Pace. Amen.</sc>
.nf-

It is far from my intention to enter into controversy
over the last sad transaction in the life of him
whose memoir I have written. The facts are as I
have stated, and might have been made clearer had
I been at liberty to use certain letters, which I have
seen, but am not allowed to quote.

According to Roman Catholic doctrine, there is
no salvation for those who die outside the Church,
unless they have remained in ignorance of Catholic
verities. No such plea could be urged in the case
.bn 285.png
.pn +1
of Mr. Hawker; and therefore, from the point of
view of a Romanist, his damnation was assured.

A Roman Catholic priest is bound by the rules of
his Church, and in doubtful cases by the decisions of
eminent canonists. The “Rituale Romanum” for
the baptism of adults provides for the baptism of
those who are unconscious, and even raving mad, on
the near approach of death, if there have appeared
in them, when conscious, a desire for baptism;[#] and
the apparent satisfaction expressed by Mr. Hawker’s
face on Saturday morning was sufficient to express
acquiescence, passive if not active. How far he was
aware of what was proposed, with his brain partly
paralysed, is open to question. However, in the case
of such a sickness, the patient is regarded in the
same light as an infant, and passive acquiescence is
admitted as sufficient to justify the administration of
the sacrament.
.pm fn-start
<i>De Baptismo Adultorum</i>: “Amentes et furiosi non
baptizentur, nisi tales a nativitate fuerint: tunc etiam de iis
judicium faciendum est, quod de infantibus atque in fide Ecclesiæ
baptizari possunt. Sed si dilucida habeant intervalla, dum mentis
compotes sunt, baptizentur, si velint. Si vero antequam
insanirent, suscipiendi Baptismi desiderium ostenderint, ac vitæ
periculum immineat, <i>etiamsi non sint compotes mentis,
baptizentur</i>. Idemque dicendum est de eo, qui <i>lethargo</i>
aut phrenesi laborat, ut tantum vigilans et intelligens
baptizentur, <i>nisi periculum mortis
impendeat</i>, si in eo prius apparuerit Baptismi desiderium.”
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
Dens, a great authority, in his <i>Theologia Moralis
et Dogmatica</i>, says that in the case of those who
are out of their mind, with no prospect of a lucid
interval—which would, of course, include the period
of unconsciousness before death—baptism may be
administered, if there be reason to conjecture that
the patient desired it when of sound mind. And, as
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
no proofs are laid down for testing the desire, the
rule is a very elastic one.[#]
.pm fn-start
Dens, <i>Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica, Tract. de Sacramentis in
Genere</i>, §45: “De iis, qui quandoque habuerunt usum rationis,
sed jam eo carent, judicanda est dispositio secundum voluntatem
et dispositionem quam habuerunt sanæ mentis existentes.
Observandum tamen, quod, si aliquando habeant lucida intervalla,
tunc Sacramentum eis non sit ministrandum extra necessitatem,
nisi dum mentis compotes sunt.”
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
Billuart, however, asserts that, for the sacrament
of penitence, full consciousness is necessary, as an
act of penitence is an essential part of it; so that,
though a man may be baptised who is insane or unconscious,
such a man cannot be absolved. Marchantius,
in his <i>Candelabrum Mysticum</i>, lays down that a
man may be baptised when drunk, as well as when
unconscious, or raving mad, if he had before shown
a disposition to receive the sacrament.

Practically, no doubt, moved by desire to assure
the salvation of the patient, Roman Catholic clergy
will charitably trust to there being a disposition, on
very slight grounds. The following instance will
show this, communicated to me by a learned English
divine: “Some time ago a lady wrote to me for
counsel, on this ground. Her father-in-law, a very
aged man, a Unitarian, had died whilst she was helping
to nurse him, and had been unconscious for some
days before his death. A very well-known and distinguished
Roman Catholic wrote a letter to her,
which she forwarded to me to read, blaming her very
severely for not having seized the opportunity for
baptising him, on the ground that he <i>might</i> have
changed his views, and <i>might</i> have desired baptism,
and that the sacrament, so administered, would have
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
been his passport to heaven. She consulted me as
to her blameworthiness, and as to whether she had,
in fact, to reproach herself with a failure of duty. I
replied in the negative, and stated that the purely
mechanical view of the sacrament taken by her correspondent
was, to say the least, highly untheological.
I do not give the names, but you may cite me as
having supplied you with this fact, which happened
this year (1875).”

A case was brought before my notice also, of a
man being baptised when dying in a condition of
delirium tremens. To the English mind such a case
is very shocking, but it is one provided for by Marchantius.
In this case it was conjectured that the
man had desired baptism into the Roman communion:
he had previously been a member, though
an unworthy one, of the English Church, and had
shown no desire of secession.

I cannot dismiss this part of my subject without
dealing briefly with an accusation made against Mr.
Hawker by certain correspondents in the papers.
They did not shrink from charging him with having
been for many years a Roman Catholic at heart, only
holding on his position of the Church of England for
the sake of the loaves and fishes it offered him.

If I had considered there were grounds for this
charge, his life would never have been written by
me.

How far Mr. Hawker was a consenting party
to the reception, how far he had gone towards contemplating
such a change when incapacitated by
paralysis from forming a decision, I cannot decide.
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
The testimony is conflicting. I hesitate to believe
that it was his intention to leave the Church of England
before he died. He was swayed this way or
that by those with whom he found himself. He was
vehement in one direction one day, as impetuous in
another direction on the day following.

No one who knew Mr. Hawker intimately, not one
of his nearest relatives, his closest friends to whom
he opened his heart, can believe that he was a conscious
hypocrite. If there was one quality which
was conspicuous in his character it was his openness.
He could not act a part, he could not retain unspoken
a thought that passed through his brain, even when
common judgment would have deemed concealment
of the thought advisable. He was transparent as a
Dartmoor stream; and all his thoughts, beliefs and
prejudices lay clearly seen in his mind, as the quartz
and mica and hornblende particles on the brook’s
white floor.

If there was one vice which, with his whole soul,
he abhorred, it was treachery in its every form.

.pm verse-start
Be true to Church, be kind to poor,
O minister, for evermore!
.pm verse-end

.ni
were his lines cut by him over his vicarage door.
.pi
In 1873 or 1874 the rector of Kilkhampton was
about to go to Exeter to preach an ordination service
in its cathedral. The vicar of Morwenstow said to
him: “Go, and bid the young men entering the holy
ministry be honest, loyal, true.” Is that the exhortation
of a man conscious in his own heart that he is
a traitor?
.bn 289.png
.pn +1

One day, not long ago, he was in Kilkhampton, and
entered the house of an old man, a builder, there.

The old man said to him: “You know, Mr. Hawker,
what names you have been called in your day. They
have said you were a Roman Catholic.”

“Hockeridge,” answered Mr. Hawker, standing in
the midst of the floor, and speaking with emphasis,
“I am a priest of the Church, of the Church of God,
of that Church which was hundreds of years in
Cornwall before a Pope of Rome was thought of.”

A clergyman in the diocese of London, who knew
him well, thus writes:—

.pm letter-start
I think I never read any announcement with greater surprise
than that the late vicar of Morwenstow had, shortly before
his death, been “received” into the Church of Rome. Mr.
Hawker and I were intimate friends for a number of years, and
there were few matters connected either with himself or those
near and dear to him on which he did not honour me with his
confidence. It was just a year ago that I spent some days with
him, shortly after his visit to London, to collect funds for the
restoration of his interesting church, among the scenes he
loved so well; and I feel perfectly assured, had he then meditated
such a step, or had he so much as allowed it to assume a
form in his mind, however indefinite, it would have been among
the subjects of our converse. Nothing, however, was more
contrary to the fact. I am certain that at that time not an idea
of such a thing occurred to him. I received most confidential
letters from him down to a short period before his death; and
there is not a line in them which hints at any change in those
opinions which had not only become part of himself, but which,
as opportunity offered, he was accustomed to defend with no
small amount either of logic or of learning. My friend was a
man of profound learning, of very great knowledge of passing
events, and able to estimate aright the present aspect of the
Church and her difficulties. He was also a man of transparent
honesty of purpose, of the nicest sense of honour, and of bold
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
and fearless determination in the discharge of his duties. On
two matters he was an enthusiast—the scenery and the early
Christian history of his beloved Cornwall, and, which is more
to my purpose, the position and rights of the Church of which
he was, in my most solemn belief, a dutiful and faithful priest.
He was never weary of asserting her claim as the Catholic
Church of England, possessed of orders as good as those of
any other branch of the Sacred Vine, and alone possessed of
the mission which could make their exercise available. His
very aspect was that of the master in Israel, conscious of his
indubitable position, and whose mind was thoroughly made up
on questions about which many other men either have no
certain opinions, or at least have no such ground for holding
them as that with which his learning and acuteness at once
supplied him. Such was the late vicar of Morwenstow, one
of the very last men in England to leave the Church of which
he gloried to be a priest, of whose cause he was at all times
the most unyielding defender, and in whose communion it was
his hope and prayer to die.
.pm letter-end
.sp 1
Nevertheless I think it possible, that during the
last year or two of his life, when failing mentally
as well as bodily, and when labouring under the
excitement or subsequent depression caused by the
opium he ate to banish pain, he may have said, or
written recklessly, words which are capable of being
twisted into meaning a change of views. There
can be little doubt that the taking of narcotics
deadens the moral sense, the appreciation of Truth,
and possibly, towards the end, Mr. Hawker may
have had hankerings Romeward. But we must consider
the man as he was when sound in body and
in mind, and not when stupified by pain, and the
medicines given to deaden the pain.[#] I have
.bn 291.png
.pn +1
laboured, above all things, in this book, to give a
true picture of the man I describe: I have not
painted an ideal portrait.
.pm fn-start
I have omitted from this edition some controversial matter that has
ceased to be of interest.
.pm fn-end
.sp 1
And now my work is done. I have written truthfully
the life of this most remarkable man: I have
taken care to “nothing extenuate, nor aught set down
in malice.” I cannot more worthily conclude my
task than with the peroration of Mr. Hawker’s visitation
sermon, already quoted.

.pm letter-start
‘The day is far spent, and the night is at hand: the hour
cometh wherein no man can work. A little while, and all will
be over.’ ‘Their love and their hatred, and their envy, will
have perished; neither will they any longer have a name under
the sun.’ The thousand thoughts that thrill our souls this day,
with the usual interests and the common sympathies of an
earthly existence—of all these there will not, by-and-by, survive
in the flesh a single throb. This, our beloved father in
the Church, will have entered into the joy of his Lord, to prefer,
perchance, in another region, affectionate supplications for
us who survive and remain. We, who are found worthy, shall
be gathered to a place and people where the strifes and the
controversies of earth are unnoted and unknown. “Violence
shall no more be heard in that land, wasting nor destruction
within its borders; but they shall call the gates Salvation and
the walls Praise. There the envy of Ephraim shall depart and
the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not
envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.”

Nevertheless all will not perish from the earth. That which
hath done valiantly in the host will not glide away into a land
where all things are forgotten. Although the sun may go down
while it is yet day, it shall come to pass that at evening tide
there shall be light. Moses is dead, and Aaron is dead, and
Hur is gathered to his fathers also; but, because of their
righteous acts in the matter of Rephidim, their memorial and
their name live and breathe among us for example and admonition
still. So shall it be with this generation. He, our spiritual
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
lord, whose living hands are lifted up in our midst to-day—he
shall bequeath to his successors and to their children’s
children, the eloquent example and the kindling heritage of his
own stout-hearted name. And we, the lowlier soldiers of the
war—so that our succour hath been manifest and our zeal true—we
shall achieve a share of humble remembrance as the
duteous children of Aaron and of Hur.

They also, the faithful few, who have lapped the waters of
dear old Oxford, and who were the little company appointed to
go down upon the foe with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon,
and to prevail—honour and everlasting remembrance for their
fearless names! If, in their zeal, they have exceeded; if, in
the dearth of sympathy and the increase of desolation, they
should even yet more exceed—nay, but do Thou, O Lord God
of Jeshurun, withstand them in that path, if they should forsake
the house of the mother that bare them for the house of
the stranger!

Still let it never be forgotten, that their voices and their
volumes were the signals of the dawn that stirred the heart of
a slumbering people with a shout for the mastery. Verily, they
have their reward. They live already in the presence of future
generations; and they are called, even now, by the voices yet
unborn, the giants of those days, the mighty men that were of
old, the men of renown!

Whosoever shall win the war, whatsoever victories may
wait hereafter on the armies of the living God, it shall never
fail from the memory and heart of England, who and what
manner of men were they that, when the morning was yet
spread upon the mountains, arose, and went down to the host,
and brake the pitcher, and waved the lamp and blew the trumpet
in the face of Midian!

God Almighty grant that they and their adversaries and
we ourselves also, may look on each other’s faces and be at
rest, one day, in the city of God, among the innumerable company
of angels, and the first-born whose names are written in
heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the
Mediator of the new covenant, through the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel!
.pm letter-end
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
APPENDIX A
.sp 2
.nf c
<sc>The Granville Letters in the Possession of Ezekiel Rous,\
Esq., Bideford</sc>
.nf-
.fs 80%
.ta |h:18  |h:12  |h:14  |h:10  |h:10|
_
<th><al=c><sc>From</sc> | <al=c><sc>At</sc> | <al=c><sc>To</sc> |\
<al=c><sc>Date</sc> | <al=c><sc>At</sc>
_
The Countess of Bath |Tawstock |Barnard Grenville, Esq. | April\
 24, 1603 |
Barnard Grenville, Esq.| |My beloved sonne Bevill Grenvile |May\
1, 1615 |
John Grenvile | Lincoln’s Inn |His brother Bevill Grenvile |July\
18, 1621   |
George Granville | Wear, near Doncaster | The Hon. Mr. Bernard\
 Granville  |Oct. 6, 1638 |
Lady Francis Carteret | (London) | Mrs. Waddon | Feb. 14, 1715 |\
 Tonacombe
Sir Beville Grenville | Laners (?)|Lady Grace, his wife\
 Jan. 6, 1642 |  |
Lansdowne | | Mr. Bevill Granville upon his entering into Holy\
 Orders | |
Sir Beville Grenville | Hayne | The Lady Grace Grenville\
  March 15, 1639  | Stow |
Sir Beville Grenville |Cuttinbeake | Mrs. Grace Grenvile |\
 Nov. 29, 1628    | Stow
Lady Grace Grenvile | Stow | Sir Bevill Grenvile | Nov. 23, 1641 |
Barnard Grenvile | | My beloved sonn Bevill Grenville    |March\
 21, 1617  |
Thomas Drake  |  | Bevill Grenvile, Esq. | |
Barnard Grenvill | Keligarth | My beloved sonne Bevill Grenvile |\
 Aug. 6, 1614 | London
Sir Beville Grenville | |The wife of the Chancellor of the  Diocese\
 | |
Sir Beville Grenville  | | My Co. Porter  | |
_
.ta-
.dv class='box1' // box start
.in 4
One letter from Sir Bevil to the Chancellor of the Diocese, to
oblige the minister of Suttcombe to let the parish get a
lecturer, as he is scarce able to read, utterly unable to preach,
and what he speaks in the church can hardly be understood—one
letter signed Clanricarde, another signed G. Talbot—a pass signed
Jo. Coplestown.
.in 0
.dv-           // box end

.bn 294.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.ta |h:18  |h:12  |h:14  |h:10  |h:10|
_
<th><al=c><sc>From</sc> | <al=c><sc>At</sc> | <al=c><sc>To</sc> |\
<al=c><sc>Date</sc> | <al=c><sc>At</sc>
_
Sir Beville Grenville |Stow | My Co. Ri. Prideaux | Feb. 8, 1634 |
Barnard Grenvile, Esq. | |The Lady Grace Smith | Sept. 3, 1618\
| Maydeworthey, near Exon
Belville Grenville |  | His son Richard | |
Sir Beville Grenville | |His son Richard | |
Richard Grenville, Esq. | |My honoured father Sir Beville Grenville | |
Lady Grace Grenville |Stow | My loving sonne Richard Grenville |\
Feb. 10, 1638 |Glocester Hall, in Oxford
Sir Beville Grenville | | His father | |
Sir James Bagg | | Mr. Richard Estcott | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | Mr. Byrd. | |
Sir Beville Grenville(?)| |Sir William Wray | |
Sir Beville Grenville   | | Mr. Oldesworth  | |
Sir Beville Grenville   | | Mr. Coriton     | |
Sir Beville Grenville   | Stow  | Mr. Oldesworth | Jan. 18, 1627 |
Sir Beville Grenville   | Stow  |My Co. Rous[#]  |March 20, 1625 |
Sir Beville Grenville(?)| | Mr. Pollard | |
Sir Beville Grenville   | | Sir William Waller | |
Sir Beville Grenville   | | Sir William Waller | |
Sir Beville Grenville   | | Sir Nicholas Stanning | |
.bn 295.png
.pn +1
Sir Beville Grenville | |Mr. Rouse |                 |
Sir Beville Grenville | |My Co. Arundell | |
Sir Beville Grenville   |Bydeford  | To my best friend, Mrs.\
Grace Grenvile[#] | March 29, 1636 |Stow
Sir Beville Grenville | | Sir John Trelawney | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | Mr. Wheare         | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | Mr. Wheare         | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | His son Richard    | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | Mr. Rashleigh      | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | My Co. Harris of Haine | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | His brother        | |
Sir Beville Grenville | | His brother        | |
Lady Grace Grenville  | | Mr. Arscott        | |
Damaris Arscott       | | To the Lady Jane Grenville | |
William Grosse | Morwenstow | The Right Worshipful Sir John\
Grenville | Dec. 26, 1656 |Stow
J. Thornehill | | For my honoured brother Sir John Grenville\
 | July 6, 1656 | London
Sir Beville Grenville |Liskeard | The Lady Grace Grenville \
 | Jan. 19, 1642 | Stow
Sir Beville Grenville | | The Lady Grace Grenville | Feb. 26, 1642 |
Lady Grace Grenville  | Stowe | Sir Beville Grenville | |
.bn 296.png
.pn +1
Lady Grace Grenville | Madford | Mrs. Bevill Grenville \
| July 4, 1625     | London
Lady Grace Grenville  | | Mrs. Bevill Grenville | Aug. 20, 1625 |
Sir Beville Grenville | | His son Richard | |
Robert Cary           | Clovelly | For the Right Hon. Earl of\
Bath | March 29, 1671  | Stow
Sir Beville Grenville(?)| |Mrs. Acland | |
Sir Beville Grenville | Stow | (?) | Aug. 23, 1627 |
Sir Beville Grenville | | Mr. Webber  | |
Sir Beville Grenville | Bodmin | Lady Grace Grenville | March 25,\
1640 |
Lady Grace Grenville  | Stow | Sir Beville Grenville | Dec. 1,\
1641 | London
George Granville[#] | | William Henry, Earl of Bath, etc. |\
 Sept. 4, 1711 | The Camp in Flanders
_
.ta-
.pm fn-start
In this letter occurs the expression: “Since I did engage myself
by my word, which I value above all worldly wealth, and will not
breake it for an empire”.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
In this letter occurs the expression: “Let me hear a Saturday
night whither the picture came home safe, and did scape the
wett”. This seems to refer to his portrait of same date, now in
possession of Rev. W. Waddon Martyn.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
This letter ends with the following sentences: “‘To fear God, and
honour the King,’ were injunctions so closely tack’d together
that they seem to make but one and the same command; a man may as
well pretend to be a good Christian without fearing God as a good
subject without honouring the King”.

“‘Deo, Patriæ, et Amicis,’ was your great-grandfather, Sir
Bevil’s motto—in three (? these) words he has added to his
example a rule, which in following you can never err in any duty
of life. The brightest courage and the gentlest disposition is
part of Lord Clarendon’s character of him; so much of him you
have begun to show us already; and the best wish I can make for
you is to resemble him as much in all but his untimely fate.”
.pm fn-end
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.fs 100%
.h2
APPENDIX B
.nf c
<l>SERMON BY REV. R S. HAWKER</l>

<s>PREACHED AT LAUNCESTON, 1865</s>

<s>Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world\
(<sc>Matt.</sc> xxviii. 20).</s>
.nf-
.sp 2
.pm letter-start
The election of the Jewish people from among the nations had
fulfilled its promised end. Their fortunes had displayed the
alliance between transgression and punishment, obedience and
reward, in the temporal dispensations of God; and suggested an
analogy between these and the spiritual allotments of a state
future and afar. They had treasured up, with a reverence
approaching to superstition, the literal language of the old
inspiration, the human echo of the voice of the Lord. But the
national custody of prophetic evidence and typical illustration
was no longer demanded from those guardians of the oracles of
God. Prediction had been fixed and identified by event, and
type had expired in substantive fulfilment. The ritual also of
the old covenant was one of fugitive and local designation.
The enactments of their civil code anticipated miraculous
support; and, had this been vouchsafed to many nations,
miracle, instead of an interruption in the harmony of nature,
would have been in the common order of events. The observance,
again, of their ceremonial law, restricted to one temple
and a single altar, was impracticable to all save those in the
vicinity of that particular land; many, indeed, were merely
possible under peculiar adaptations of climate, manners and
governments. Even the solemn recognition of the old morality
embodied in the Scripture of Moses, and made imperative by
the signature of God; inasmuch as it exacted utter obedience,
and yet indicated no ceremonial atonement for defect, was
.bn 298.png
.pn +1
another argument of a mutable creed. The impress of change,
the character of incompletion, were traceable on every feature
of the ancient faith. The spirit of their religion, as well as the
voice of prophecy, announced that the sceptre must depart
from Judah, and a new covenant arrive for the house of Israel.
It was not thus with the succeeding revelation. When the
fulness of time was come (that is to say, when the experiment
of ages had ascertained the Gentile world that the sagacity of
man was inadequate to the counsels of God), and when the
long exhibition of a symbolic ritual by the chosen Israelites
had conveyed significant illustration of the future and final
faith, God sent His Son. Then was brought to light the wisdom
and coherence of the one vast plan. The history of man was
discovered to be a record of his departure from a state of
original righteousness (after the intervention of a preparatory
religion) and eternal existence, and his restoration thereto by
a single Redeemer for all his race. For this end, the Word, that
is to say, the Revealer, was made flesh. That second impersonation
of the sacred Trinity “took our manhood into God”. The
Godhead did not descend, as of old, in partial inspiration, nor
were its issues restrictive and particular to angel or prophet;
but, because the scheme about to be developed was to be the
religion of humanity, its Author identified Himself with human
nature, and became, in His own expressive language, the Son
of man. He announced, in the simple solemnity of truth, the
majestic errand of His birth—to save sinners; repealed, by a
mere declaration, every previous ritual, and substituted one
catholic worship for the future earth. Now, the elements of
durability were blended with every branch of this new revelation.
Firstly, unlike the old covenant, it had no kingdom of this
world, it depended on no peculiar system of political rule, interfered
not with any civil right, but submitted to every ordinance
of man as supreme to itself. The Christian faith was obviously
meant to cohere with the political constitution of any country
and all lands; to be the established religion of republic or
monarchy according to the original laws, or any fundamental
compact between ruler and realm; as, for example, this our
Church of England received solemn recognition as a public
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
establishment, and had assurance of the future protection of
her liberties and privileges unharmed, in the Charter of King
John. The new ceremonial usages again were as watchfully
calculated for stability, as the forms of the old law had been
pregnant with change. The simplicity of baptism—that rite
of all nations—was invested with a sacramental mystery, and
constituted the regenerative and introductory rite of a vast
religion.
.pi
One sacrifice, and that to be offered not again, was exhibited
upon Mount Calvary, that last altar of earthly oblations; and
the sources of redemption were thenceforth complete. The
memory of this scene was to be perpetuated, and its benefits
symbolised and conveyed, by an intelligible solemnity, common
to all countries, and attainable wheresoever two or three were
gathered together in His name. The moral law proceeding on
the perpetuity of natural obligation entered of necessity into
the stipulations of the new covenant. But it was no longer
fettered in operation by a literal Decalogue; no longer repulsive
from its stern demand for uncompromising obedience.
Its enactments were transferred by the Founder of Christianity
into the general and enlarged principles of human action, and
defect in its observance supplied by an atonement laid up or
invested in the heavens. But not only was this alteration of
doctrine and ceremony made from transitory to eternal: the
law being changed, there arrived of necessity a change in the
priesthood also. The temporary functions of the race of Aaron
were superseded by the ordination of a solemn body of men,
whose spiritual lineage and clerical succession should be as
perpetual as the creed they promulgated.

The scene recalled by our text is that of the shore of
Genesareth, whereon stood the arisen Lord, with the eleven
men. Thence the sons of Zebedee, and others among them,
had departed at His mere command from their occupation
of the waters, and had become the followers of His path of
instruction in Judæa, and Samaria, and Galilee. They had
seen the supernatural passage of His life in wonder and in
sign. They had gradually imbibed the doctrines of His
mouth; for them He had given unto the olive and the vine
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
the voice of instruction, and hung, as it were, a parable on
every bow. From the cross of shame, indeed, they had
shrunk in shuddering dismay. But then, faith revived with
His resurrection and they were permitted to identify His arisen
body. And now they beheld Him on that accustomed spot,
the apparent Conqueror of death, from whose grasp He had
returned, the Author of that second life, the breath which
He breathed into his new-founded Church; the evident Lord
of—in His own declaration—all power in heaven and on
earth.

In the first ordination of Christian antiquity, the Son of
God invested with His last authority the apostles of His choice:
“Go ye into all the world, and proclaim the gladening message
into every creature. Make disciples in all nations by baptism
unto the religion and worship of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost.”

Such was the tenor of that awful commission which they
had to undertake and discharge. It was conferred at that
hour on none beside, imparted with no lavish distribution
to a multitude of disciples, but restricted to the blessed
company of apostles; and by implication to those whom they
in after-time might designate and ordain, save that the supernatural
interference of the same Lord in the vocation of
particular apostles might and did afterwards occur.

Who is sufficient for these things? must have been the
conscious, though unuttered, question of every apostolic heart
at that hour of awe. The fishermen of Bethsaida to arise
from their nets to convert the nations! Unknown Galilæans
to compel the homage of distant and enlightened cities to
the Crucified! The Searcher of hearts, aware of their natural
diffidence and usual fear, therefore gave them assurance that
the purifying and instructing Spirit He had promised should
descend upon them at Jerusalem, and that miracle and sign
should attend their ministerial path; and then, to banish the
apprehension and awaken the courage of His succeeding servants,
he uttered to those representatives of the Christian
clergy the consolation of our text—a catholic promise to a
catholic Church—“Lo, I am with you always, even unto the
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
end of the world.” Amply was that pledge redeemed, that
promise fulfilled! After not many days, urged onward by the
impulse of the descended Spirit, upheld by the conscious
presence of their invisible Lord, the apostles, from the guest-chamber
of Jerusalem proceeded on their difficult path. Peril
and hostility were on every side. On the one hand, the Jews,
haughty and stubborn, clung to the altars of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, and would not have “that man to reign over
them.” On the other hand, the Gentiles, absorbed in the
indulgence of a luxuriant superstition, were unlikely to forego
the gods of their idolatry, and elect from among the various
formularies of worship the adoration of Jesus of Nazareth.
Yet mightily grew the word of the Lord, and prevailed. Not
only were Jewish converts counted in vast multitudes beneath
the eloquence of St. Peter and St. John, but, in Gentile countries,
a tent-maker of Tarsus obtained much people in every
city. The mantle of the apostles descended on early martyrs
and succeeding saints, until, not four centuries after the ascension
of its Lord, the yoke of Christianity was on the neck of
men having authority. A vast empire was docile to its tenets,
and a conqueror was found to inscribe on his banner the symbol
of human redemption, the wood of shame.

These, it may be urged, were days of miracle and sign.
They were so; but it was only because prodigy and supernatural
proof were the chief exigencies of those times. The
supply of grace—by which word I understand aidance Divine
imparted to human endeavour—was not intended to be uniform
or redundant, but “by measure.” Thus the display of the
co-operation declared in our text, and the contribution of the
Holy Ghost, to the structure and stability of the apostolic
Church, these were to be accorded in rigid proportion to time
and circumstance and local need. When that Church, built
upon the rock of a pure confession, and reared by the succeeding
hands of apostles and saints, had survived the wrath of
early persecution, and baffled the malice of Pagan antiquity,
then, in the next section of her history, heresy and schisms
within her walls tried her foundations, and assayed her strength.
In this peril He was with her always—vouchsafed other manifestations
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
of His presence and His power. Wise and courageous
champions “for the faith once delivered to the saints” appeared
on the scene, clad with faculty and function obviously from on
high. The warfare of controversy produced the exposition of
error and the triumph of truth. Those sound statements of
the Triune Mystery and the attributes of the Second Person
therein, which we confess in our Nicene and Athanasian
formularies, were documents deduced from those Arian and
Sabellian dissensions which they were embodied to refute.
The suggestions of Pelagianism, again, in the succeeding era,
tended to the more accurate definition of Scriptural doctrine
on the union of Divine with human agency in the conduct of
man; and the experiment of centuries afforded ample comment
on the text of the apostle, that “heresies must needs be, in
order that the orthodox might appear.” True it is that in the
following times, under Papal encroachment, a long period of
lowering superstition was permitted to threaten the primitive
doctrine and distort the liturgical simplicity of the Church of
Christ; yet even then the fire of the apostolic lips was not
wholly quenched. The sudden impulse given to the human
mind by the appeal of Luther, proved that the elements of
early faith yet endured—that the former spirit was breathing
still, and awaited only that summons to respond to the call.
The success of that German monk, and the other lowly instruments
whereby a vast work was wrought exhibited another
interference of that supernatural succour promised by our text.
The fortunes of our Church of England, since that reformation,
have been somewhat given to change. Once her sanctuaries
have been usurped, and often her walls assailed. Evil men
have “gone round about our Sion, and told the towers thereof,
and marked well her bulwarks,” but with hostile intent. The
present days are not without their danger! Still we hitherto
remain. Still we have the promise of the text sounding in our
ears. Still have we the contribution of our own endeavours to
sustain the spiritual fabric whereto we belong. The circumstances
that originate with ourselves to impair our ecclesiastical
validity appear to be, firstly, a spirit of concession. The right
hand of paternity is too often extended, when the glove over
.bn 303.png
.pn +1
Edom, the gauntlet of defiance, should be cast down, and the
sword of the Spirit grasped to combat and refute. Dissent
may be inseparable from religious freedom, as prejudice and
error are congenital with the human mind. But the wanderers
from our discipline and doctrine forget that they have voluntarily
destroyed their identity with the flock; freely abandoned
the pasture and refuge of the true fold; and have wilfully
resigned all inheritance in its spiritual safety and in the secular
advantage which may thereto accidently belong. If, then,
through some narrow gate of misconception or error they have
“gone from us because they were not of us,” they cannot, in
honesty, look that it should be widened for their readmittance,
when that return, too, is with unfavourable design towards us
and ours. Far be it from me to display unnecessary hostility
towards any sect or denomination of men! but if, as I conceive,
it be in supposition, that, by some compromise of doctrine
or ceremony on our part, future stability may accrue to this
Church of England, let us remember that Divine co-operation
is not proposed to unworthy means, and that recorded experiment
hath shown that it were even better that the Ark of God
should tremble than that the hand of Uzzah should sustain its
strength.

One other source of future insecurity may be apprehended
from the growth of vanity in theological opinion and private
interpretation among the members of our own body. For
example, it is matter of lamentation, that the terms “orthodox”
and “evangelical” should have attained contrasted
usage in a Church whose appellations, like her doctrines,
should be catholic and one. As in the perilous time of the
early Corinthian Church, the existence of divisions in practice
extorted the indignant expostulations of St. Paul, so, in these
days of danger, it behooves every sincere friend to ecclesiastical
order, to deprecate the exhibition of internal diversity,
either on questionable doctrine or custom indifferent, to the
surrounding foe. Better it were that those energies which are
dissipated on the shibboleths of party, were applied, in unison,
to the vindication and honour of the general Church! The
theory of ministerial operation might appear to be, that every
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
apostolic officer of Christ should combine, with the intrepid
discharge of his own duty, a corporate anxiety for the common
weal; that each of us should convey his personal stability as
a contribution to the strength of our spiritual structure, and
regard the graces of individual ministry as instrumental to the
decoration of a general edifice, built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
Cornerstone. To this end, the solemnity of that function
which the apostolic clergy have to discharge is in itself argument
and exhortation. Unto them was transferred the especial
guardianship and authoritative exposition of the oracles of
God. By them alone the Founder of their faith gave promise
to infuse sacramental advantage into the souls of men. The
pledge and reward, the privileges and hopes, of Christian
Scripture, regard that Universal Church wherein they hold
pastoral rank from the Chief Shepherd, to bind and loose, shut
and enclose in his earthly fold. The constant remembrance
of these things might both kindle zeal and repress presumption;
for, though the office be “but a little lower than the
angels,” how can we forget that it is intrusted to frail and
erring men? The train of thought suggested by a retrospect
of these remarks is, that the erection of our enduring Church
was always the hopeful predestination—the original intent of
God; that three periods of revelation absorb the spiritual
history of man: the simple worship of the patriarchal times;
that rudiment of religion, the particular, but mutable and
transitory, covenant of Moses; and the catholic faith which
we confess. In this last inspiration, all doctrine and usage,
stationary and complete, are final; and we approach in this
concluding dispensation the threshold of eternity; and the
text has announced the prophecy of the Revealer, that the
official existence of its ministers shall expire only with the close
of time. Local illustration of this durability is extant in our
own ecclesiastical records. What changes have glided over
the land since these towers of the past were set upon our hills,
the beacons of the eternity whereto they lead! What alternations
of poverty and wealth, of apprehension and hope, have
visited those who have served at their altars! times of vigour
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
and decay! And yet we have assembled this day to exhibit
our adoration to the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He
hath sent, in this surviving sanctuary “grey with His name”;
but the voice of history, that prophet of the past, affords us
full assurance of hope for the future continuance of our beloved
Church. Vicissitudes may approach, but not destruction; external
attack, but no intrinsic change! Whatsoever the hand
of sacrilege may perpetrate on the temporal fortunes of the
Church of England, these are accessory but not essential to
her spiritual existence. Howsoever she may be despoiled of
her earthly revenues, though silver and gold she had none,
there would be much, apostolic and sacramental, that men
must seek at her hands; and with the memory of Him who
uttered the consolation of the text, we confide, that, while
England shall bear that name, in the imagery of the Psalmist,
“The sparrow will find her a home, and the swallow a nest
where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of
Hosts, my King and my God!” Because He will be with us
in the control and guidance of human events, for all power is
given unto Him in heaven and on earth; with us in the general
anxiety of His providence and the particular interference of His
aid, since the Chief Shepherd must keep the watches of the
night over His earthly fold; with us in the issues common and
ministerial of His most Holy Spirit, which is in continual procession
from the Father and the Son—Lo! He is with us
always, even unto the end of the world!
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.h2 id=footnotes
Footnotes
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.ul
.it Transcriber’s Notes:
.ul indent=1
.if h
.it <target id='pseudo'> * Wherever an asterisk accompanies a name\
it is for the purpose of showing that the real name has not been\
given, either at the request of descendants, or because relatives\
are still alive.
.if-
.it The inconsistent spelling of the Grenvile or Grenville\
surname and the Bevill and Beville forename has not been changed.
.it Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
.it Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a\
predominant form was found in this book.
.ul-
.ul-
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