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The following are (itker ready or in the press : —
Dan Russel the Fox E. CE. Somerville and Martin Ross
Fire in Stubble
Splendid Brother
Joseph
Said the.Fisherman
Hill Rise
The Guarded Flame
The Mighty Atom
Jane
Light Freights
The Demon
C. N.
Baroness Orczy
W. Pet, Ridge
Frank Danby
Marmaduke Pickthall
W. B. Maxwell
VV. B. Maxwell
Marie Corelli
Marie Corelli
W. W. Jacobs
and A. M. Williamson
Lady Betty Across the Water
C. N. and A
The Tyrant
Anna of the Five Towns
The Secret Woman
The Long Road
The Severins
Under the Red Robe
Mirage
Virginia Perfect
Spanish Gold
Barbary Sheep
The Woman with the Fan
The Golden Centipede
Round the Red Lamp
The Halo
Tales of Mean Streets
The Missing Delora
The Charm
M. Williamson
Mrs. Henry de la Pasture
Arnold Bennett
Eden Phillpotts
John Oxenhara
Mrs. A. Sidgwick
Stanley Weyman
E. Temple Thurston
Peggy Webling
G. A. Birmingham
Robert Hichens
Robert Hichens
Louise Gerard
Sir A. Conan Doyle
Baroness von Hutten
Arthur Morrison
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Alice Perria
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ISAAC FOOT
Methuen's Shilling Library
A SERIES of general literature issued in fcap. 8vo. at is. net,
printed on good paper and well bound in cloth. The books
are reprints of well-known works by popular authors.
The foUo-.ting are eiiher reniy or in the press : —
Two Admirals Admiral John Moresby
The Parish Clerk p. H. Dltchfield
Thomas Henry Huxley p. Chalmers Mitchell
Hills and the Sea H. Belloc
Old Country Life S. Baring-Gould
The Vicar of Morwenstow s. Baring-Gould
Intentions Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere's Fan Oscar Wilde
De Profundis Oscar Wilde
Selected Poems Oscar Wilde
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime Oscar Wilde
A Little of Everything E. V. Lucas
John Boyes, King of the Wa-Kikuyu John Boyes
*Jimmy Glover — His Book James M. Glover
Vailima Letters Robert Louis Stevenson
Tennyson A, C. Benson
The Blue Bird Maurice Maeterlinck
Mary Magdalene Maurice Maeterlinck
Sevastopol and other Stories Leo Tolstoy
*The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson
Graham Balfour
*The Life of John Ruskin w. G. CoUingwood
The Condition of England c. F. G. Masterman, M.P.
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son
George Horace Lorimer
The Lore of the Honey Bee Tickner Edwardes
Under Five Reigns Lady Dorothy Nevill
*From Midshipman to Field Marshal
Sir Evelyn Wood
Man and the Universe sir Oliver Lodge
• Slightly abridged.
Methuen & Co., Ltd., 36, Essex Street, London, W.C.
THE VICAR
OF MORWENSTOW
BEIKG A LIFE OF
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, M.A.
BY
S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
METHUEN & CO., LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published ai /s. net, tit /g/j
Thii Book xfas First Published by Methuen & Co., July, iS()<j; Second
Edition, January, tgoj ; Third Edition, October, iqob.
Qa LIBRARY
^2^r^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
^/75^y SANTA BARBARA
//7y
^^3 CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGR
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 Tendrils — At Oxford — Marries — The
Stowe Ghost — Robert Hawker and Mr. Jcune at
Boscastlc — The Mazed Pigs — Nanny Healc and the
Potatoes — Records of the Western Shore- — The Bude
Mermaid — Takes His Degree — Comes with his Wife
to Morwenstow . . . . • . . . . . 9
CHAPTER II
Ordination — The Black Pig " Gyp " — Writes to the Bis-
hop — His Father appointed to Stratton — He is
given Morwenstow — The Waddon Lantern — St.
Morwenna — The Children of Brychan — St. Mod-
wenna 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 Dram-
atic Power — Mr. Hicks of Bodmin . . . . . . 22
CHAPTER III
Description of Morwenstow — The Anerithmon Gclasma
— 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 . . . . 41
CHAPTER IV
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
vi CONTENTS
PAOE
— 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 63
CHAPTER V
The Inhabitants of Morwenstow in 1834 — Cruel Cop-
pinger — 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
Margaret Quail — The Wreck of the Ben Coolan —
"A Croon on Hennacliff " — Letters concerning
Wrecks — The Donkeys and the Copper Ore — The
Ship Morwcnna — Flotsam and Jetsam — Wrecks on
14th Nov., i875^Bodies in Poundstock Church —
The Loss of the Caledonia — The Wreck of the
Phoenix and oi t\\Q Alonzo .. ,. .. .. 83
CHAPTER VI
Wellcombe — Mr. Hawker Postman to Wellcombe — The
INIiss Kitties — Advertisement of Roger Giles — Super-
stitions — The Evil Eye — The Spiritual Ether — The
Vicar's Pigs Bewitched — Horse killed by a Witch —
He hnds 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 .. .. 115
CHAPTER VII
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 Mary a — A Parable
— A Carol — Love of Children — Angels — A Sermon,
"Here am I " 128
CONTENTS vu
CHAPTER VIII
PACB
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 .. .. .. .. 154
CHAPTER IX
Restoration of Morwenstow Church — The Shingle Roof
— The First Ruridecanal Synod — The Weekly Offer-
tory — Correspondence 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 . . 166
CHAPTER X
The First Mrs. Hawker — Her Influence over her Hus-
band — Anxiety about her Health — His Fits of
Depression — Letter on the Death of Sir Thomas
Acland — Reads Novels to his Wife — His \'isions —
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 Bos-
castle — To Plymouth — His Death and Funeral —
Conclusion .. .. .. .. .. ..183
LIFE OF ROBERT
STEPHEN HAWKER
CHAPTER I
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
Tendrils — At Oxford — ^Marries — The Stowe Ghost — ■
Robert Hawker and Mr. Jeune at Boscastle — The iNIazed
Pigs — Nanny Heale and the Potatoes — Records of the
Western Shore — The Bude INIermaid — Takes his Degree —
Comes with his Wife to Morwenstow.
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER 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
Morning and Evening Portions, 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 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 char-
acter deep lines, which were never effaced. Dr. Hawker
lo THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 inquir-
ing 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 with-
out 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 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 :
' 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 I
Lord, requite not as we merit ;
Thy displeasure all must fear :
As of old, so let Thy Spirit
Still the dove's resemblance bear.
I»Iay that Spirit dwell within us I
May its love our refuge be 1
So shall no temptation win us
From the path that leads to Thee.
THE VICAR OF iMORWENSTOW ii
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 I "
" Now, listen to the old version, grandfather :
' Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing ;
Fill our hearts with joy and peace ;
Let us each Thy love possessing.
Triumph in redeeming grace.
On, refresh us,
Travelling through this wilderness I
Thanks we give, and adoration.
For the Gospel's joyous sound ;
May the founts of Thy salvation
In our hearts and lives abound I
May Thy presence
With us evermore be found 1 '
" This one is crude and flat ; don't you think so,
grandfather ? "
" Crude and flat, sir ! Young puppy, it is mine ! I
wrote that hymn."
" Oh ! I beg your pardon, grandfather ; I did not
know that : it is a very nice hymn indeed ; but — but
grace is a bad rhyme for peace, 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 grand-
father ; 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 lum
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. Laflfer, at Liskeard.
12 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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. On 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 shop-
keeper 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. 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 13
Cleopatra had played on Antony ; 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 Pljnnouth led at last to his grandfather
refusing to have him any longer in his house.
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 par-
dons ! 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 Dock-
yard, 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 over-looking 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.
14 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
He did it thus. One day he called on a certain leading
physician in Plymouth, and told him that Miss Hephzi-
bdh 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
knuwn that the Misses 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, inflamma-
tion of the lungs, heart-complaint, etc., till every medical
rnan in Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport nad been
to the house of the spinsters. When these were ex-
hausted, 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 church-
yard.
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 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 dis-
like, and never could master a proposition in Euclid. At
Cheltenham he wrote some poems, and published them
in a little book entitled Tendrils, by Reuben. They
appeared in 1821, when he was seventeen years old.
From Cheltenham, Robert S. Hawker went to Oxford,
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 15
1823, and entered at Pembroke ; but his father was only
a poor curate, and unable to maintain him at the univer-
sity, Robert was determined to finish his course there.
He could not command the purse of his aunt, Mrs. Hodg-
son, 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 Tans. 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 im-
possible, 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 lady
was then aged forty-one, one year older than his mother ;
she was his godmother, and had taught him his letters.
Miss Charlotte Fans accepted him ; and they were
married in November, when he was twenty. Robert
S. Hawker and his wife spent their honeymoon at Mor-
wenstow, 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.
r6 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 un-
earthly howl, the spectre plunged 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 admit' ed : they had something of import-
ance to communicate. I Ic 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 1 " 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
Cth 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 he made acquain-
tance with Jeune and Jacobson, the former afterwards
Bishop of Peterborough, the latter Bishop of Chester,
Jeune, and afterwards Jacobson, came down into Corn-
wall 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW i?
went over together to Boscastle, and there performed
the prank described in Footprints of Former Men in
Cornwall. The two young men put up in the Httle inn
of Joan Treworgy, entitled The Ship. The inn still
exists ; but it is rebuilt, and has become more magnifi-
cent 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 ofiEicers
that travelled the country, and stopped at her house,
would mostly do the same : but, however, if we com-
manded 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 ; and to every frenzied inquiry her calm, in-
exorable repl)' 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
throv-.n on our mysterious dinner that day by a passage
which I accidentally 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
1 8 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 expostula-
tion and entreaty, and again ' a storm of 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-bcen, 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 Magda-
len 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, v.'ho hung back, and got hitched
in the crowd, and said in a low tone :
" Wlay, 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 uncon-
trollable laughter.
At Oxford Mr. Robert Hawker made acquaintance
with ]\Iacbride, afterwards head of the college ; and
the friendship lasted through life.
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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 19
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 cas-ock, 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 proceed-
ing of her old iron vessel, peered despairingly after it,
and shouted at the top of her voice :
" 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 1 Ay, 'tis a-cold out o'
doors."
Good came out of evil : for her story, which she re-
hearsed again and again, with all the energy and per-
suasion 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.
20 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
Hawker's vacations were spent at Whitstone, or at
Ivy Cottage, near Bude. At Whitstone he built him-
self 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, after-
wards published at Oxford in his Records of the Western
Shore, 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 :
And shall they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
And shall Trelawny die ?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why !
These verses have so much of the antique flavour,
that Sir Walter Scott, in one of his prefaces to a later
edition of the Border Minstrelsy, 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 under-
current of religious feeling setting steadily in one direc-
tion, which was the main governing stream of his life.
Gradually this emerges into sight, and becomes recog-
nised. 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 21
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 moon-
beams about from a hand-mirror, and sang and screamed
till attention was arrested, Some people passing along
the cUff 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 dis-
consolate 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 remark-
able 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 waves, and the mermaid
never aga'ln 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
22 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
allowed them ;f30o 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 :i 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.
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.
CHAPTER II
Ordination — The Black Pig, " Gyp " — Writes to the Bishop —
His Father appointed to Stratton — He is given Morwen-
stow — The Waddon Lantern — St. Morwenna — The Chil-
dren 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.
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER 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 satis-
faction. The pig was called Gyp, and was intelligent
^ The poem, " Pompeii," has been reprinted in his Echoes
of Old Cornwall, Ecclesia, etc.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 23
and obedient. If Mr. Hawker saw that those whom he
visited were annoyed at the intrusion of the pig, he
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 unpleasant-
ness. 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 :
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.
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 unbecom-
ing 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 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 vicar-
age house, which stood west of the tower near a gate
out of the churchyard, was let to the clerk, and inhabited
24 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
by him and his wife. The first curate was Mr. Badcock;
who hved at Week St. Mary, some fourteen miles dis-
tant. He rode over for Sunday duty. Next came a
M. Savant, a Frenchman ordained deacon in the Enghsh
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 Morwen-
stow man describes him. Wliilst 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.
" 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*,^ 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
^ Throughout this memoir, wherever an asterisk accom-
panies 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 25
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, in their applause of each
other's sallies, they occasionally broke their wine-glasses.
The vicar of Morwenstow, when Mr. Waddon snapped
ofif the foot of his glass, would put the foot and a frag-
ment 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 com-
posed 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-
Enghsh 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 of
these saints. They have left their names and their
cells and holy-wells behind them, but nothing more.
They had their lodges ia the wilderness.
Or built their cells beside the shadowy sea ;
And there they dwelt with angels like a dream.
So they unclosed the vohime of the Book,
26 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
And filled the fields of the Evangelist
With thoughts as sweet as flowers ! ^
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 hved in Brecknock an Irish
jnvader, 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 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 grand-
children of Brychan are given in the Cognacio Brychani,
and in the Bonnedd-y-Saint ; and a critical examination
of the lists is given by Dr. Roes in his Essay on the Welsh
Saints. 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 : i. St. John, or Ive, who gave his name to the
Church of St. Ive ; 2. Endehent, 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 ; 1 1 . Kerie, to Egloskerry ; 12. Heilc;
1 " The Cornish Fathers," in Mr. Hawker's Echoes of Old
Cornwall, 1846.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 27
to Egloshayle ; 13, Adwen, to Advent ; 14. Lanent, to
Lelant. Leland, in his Itinerary, adds Nectan, Dilic,
Wensenna, Wessen, Juliana, ^ Wj^mp, Wenheder, Jona,
Kananc, and Kerhender.
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 MAV^'nen, in Latin
Monjana, daughter of Brynach Wyddel by Corth, one
of the daughters of Brychan ; and her sisters Gwennan
and GwenlUu are probably the Wenna and Wenheder
of Leland's list.
St. Morwenna was therefore apparently the grand-
daughter 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 ceils 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 Collectanea,
quoting an ancient MS. book of places where the bodies
of saints rest, says that St. Morwenna lies at Morwenstow :
" In villa, quae Modwenstow dicitur, S. Mud wenna
quiescit."
It will be seen from this extract that Leland con-
founded Morwenna \nth IModwenna ; 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. '
There exists a late life of St. Modwenna by one Con-
cubran, 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 re-
* St. Juliot, who has left her aame near Boscastle.
28 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
ceived the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and died
about A.D. 518.
Concubran had this Hfe, and knowing of the fame of
the saintly abbess RIodwenna of Burton-on-Trcnt, he
supposed the two saints were the same, and wove the
Irish legend of INIonynna with the English life of Mod-
vvcnna, and made out of them a life which is a tissue of
anachronisms. He represents St. Modwenna as con-
temporary with Pope Coolestine 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
Pochard Brighde, near Faugher, in the county of Louth,
about the year 630 ; and 1 50 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
Athca, another Orbile. She ha^ a brother, a holy abbot,
named Ronan.
In Concubran's Life of St. Modwenna, we are told that
about this time Alfrid, son of the King of England, came
to Ireland. This is certainly Alfrid, the illegitimate
son of Oswy, who, on the accession of Egfrid (a.d. 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. Seach-
nach 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 kinsrnan go and rob some
church or convent, and give the spoils to the Northum-
brian 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 (a.d. 685), and demanded
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW eg
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 com-
mitted 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 reUgious house at
Burton-on-Trent, and left in it some of her nuns. ^ I need
not follow her history farther.
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,"
Slid 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 m}' fault. I com-
plained 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.^
^ " 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 I
illos subtulares in aUquo profundo abscondite."
30 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
One night, shortly before her death, before the grey
daM^n 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 Cap-
grave, 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
\\'indow of his church represented Morwenna of Corn-
wall 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 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 Mor-
wenstow ! 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, saj^s 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 31
Monvenstow cliff, looking out across the Severn Sea tc
the faint blae line of the Welsh mountains. St. Nectan
had a cell at Wellcombe, as also at Ilartland, for both of
these churches bear his name.
The coast from Tintagel to Ilartland is almost un-
rivalled 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,
" 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 Babbicombc and Torquay : it is emphati-
cally " the cruel sea," fierce, insatiate, hungering for
human lives and stately vessels, that it may cast them
pp 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 :
The west ^^■ind comes, and brings us rain ;
The cast 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.
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 sun-
light and shadows that fall over the landscape through
32 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
the vaporous air arc exquisite in their dchcacy of colour ;
the sun-gleams soft as primrose, the shadows pure cobalt,
tenderly laid on as the bloom on the cheek of a plum.
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 strong-
hold of Duke Gorlois, whose wife became the mother of
the renowned Arthur, by Uther Pendragon. We have
the tale in Geoffry of Monmouth. 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 crum-
bling 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 Boscastlc rises Pentargon, " Arthur's Head,"
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, INIorwenna, Juhot 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 pcur et sans reproche," who fought and
conquered at Stratton, and fell at Lansdown. Sir
Bevil nearly ruined himself for the cause of his king,
Charles I.
One ofiMr. Hawker's most spirited ballads is :
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 Btvil.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 33
Trevanion is up, and Godolphin is nigh.
And Harris of Hayne's o'er the river ;
From Lundy to Looe, " One and all I " is the cry.
And " the king and Sir Bevil for ever ! "
Ay I 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.
One day, if indeed w^e may trust the story, Mrs.
Hawker, the first wife of the vicar of Morwenstow, 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 six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries. He at once com-
municated with Lord Carteret, owner of Stowe, and the
papers were removed ; but by some unfortunate acci-
dent they were lost. The only ones saved were a packet
extracted from the chest by Mr. Davics, rector of Kilk-
hampton, 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.^
In his Footprints oj Former Men, 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
1 I do not myself believe in the story of the finding of the
papers by Mrs. Hawker.
B
34 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 establish-
ment at Stowe. He afterwards added two inches to his
height. It is said that one Christmas Eve the fire lan-
guished 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
Bcvil. 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 liis 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 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 eartl?
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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 35
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 :
For my best Friend, Sir Bevill Grenvile.
My ever Dearest, — I have received yours from Salisbury,
and am glad to hear you came so fan 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 %vith 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 ha\'e 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 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 performed it, and I believe though I
had a naturall dullnes in me, it would never so much have
appeard to my prejudice, but twas increased 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
36 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 punish-
ments from us, and to give us grace to know and amend what-
ever 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 overcharged.
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 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 faith-
fully and only
Grace Grenvile.
Stow, Nov. 23, 1641.
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.
The following is an earlier letter by many years written
when Grace was a wife of six years' standing.
Sweet Mr. Grenvile, — 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 . . . [some-
thing torn away], and think you shall receave advertizment
concerning us much as you desyre. I cannot say I am well.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 37
neither have I bin so since I saw j'^ou, but, however, I will
pray for your health, and good successe in all businesses, and
pray be so kiade as to love her who takes no comfort in any-
thing but you, and will remayne yours ever and only
Grace Grenvile.
Fryday Night, Nov. 13, 1629.
The superscription of this letter is :
" To my ever dearest and best Friend, Mr. Bevill Grenvile,
at the Rainbow, in Fleet Street."
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,
" aetatis suae 36, 1634." One of Sir Bevil is in the pos-
session of Lord John Thynne ; another with date 1636,
" aetatis suae 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 :
I am now without any man in the house, my father being
gone, and J acke 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 think how impassiontly I am
till I see thee agane, thinking every day a hondared yeare ;
^ To Beville GrenviUe, Esq., dated July 18, 162 1.
38 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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,
Jane Grenvile.
Thy babe bayrs thy blessing.
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.
Dear Nephew, — 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 per-
suaded you can serve Him well. In so doing, you may secure
to yourself many blessings in this world, as well as sure hope
m the next.
'1 here is one thing which I perceive you have not 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 Hights, 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 un-
deservedly complimented.
I would not have you misunderstand me, as if I recom-
mended to you a sour Presbyterian severity. That is yet
more to be avoided : advice, like physick, must be so sweetned
and 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 re-
prove 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,
^ 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 39
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 gracefuU upon
him, that in him we beheld the very beauty of Holiness.
He was as chearful as familiar, as condescending in his con-
versation, 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 Apos-
tolical 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 Elisna ; and
may the great God of heaven, in guiding, directing, and
strengthening your pious resolutions, pour down the choicest
of his blessings upon you !
Lansdown.
The old house at Stowe was converted into farm
buildings, and a new red brick mansion, square, con-
taining a court in the middle, was built in 1660 by John,
Earl of Bath. He died in 1701 ; and his son, Charles, shot
himself accidentally when going from London to Kilk-
hampton 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
WilUam 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
* 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.
40 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
where sprang up Stovve House, and grew and was mown
in the meadow where Stowe had been.
A few crumbhng walls only mark the site of the old
home of the Grenvilles.^
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 locaUty, were occupied by crowds of spectators,
whilst village actors performed on the turf stage.'
Originally the pieces acted were sacred, curious mysteries,
of which specimens remain, relating to the creation, or
the legendary history of St. Mcriadoc, 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 Shakespeare, and which
were tolerated in the days of Elizabeth. These dramati-
cal 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.
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 sup-
planted 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 telUng a story,
with power of speech, expression and gesture, they have
not their equals in England among unprofessionals.
One of the most brilliant raconteurs of our times was
Mr. Hicks, Mayor of Bodmin.
^ A picture of old Stowe is in the possession of Lord John
Thynne ; another in that of Rev. W. W. Mart>'n of Lifton
and Tonacombe.
* There is one such not far from Morwenstow, in the parish
of Kilkhampton.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 41
Some years ago a member sauntering into the Cos-
mopolitan 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 Uttle fat Cornishman from Bodmin telUng
a story. "1
His tales were works of art, wrought out with admir-
able 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-telhng, 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 1
CHAPTER III
Description of RIorwenstow — The Anerithmon Gelasma —
Source of the Tamar — Tonacombe — Morwenstow Church
— Norman Chevron-Moulding — Chancel — Altar — Shoot-
ing 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.
^ 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
42 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
A WRITER in The Standard gives this descrip-
tion of Monvenstow : " No railway has as yet
come near Morwcnstow, and none will probably ever
approach it nearer than Bude. The coast is iron-bound.
Strangely contorted schists and sand-stones stretch
away northward in an almost unbroken line of rocky
wall to the point of Hartland ; and to the south-west a
bulwark of cUfTs, 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 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 :
Who chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back.
" 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
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.
^ 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
clitf, 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 43
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 con-
struction 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 Gait's story of The Entail — 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 observed from
the coast of Morwenstow by Mr. Hawker himself. No
winter passes \vithout much loss of life. The httle
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. "^
The road to Morwenstow from civiUsation 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 Une.
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 do\vn a combe ; and Morwen-
stow 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 chimnej^s of
the vicarage. The quaint lyche-gate and ruined cottage
beside it, the venerable church, the steep slopes of the
hills blazing \\'ith gorse or red with heather, and the
background of sparkling blue sea half-way up the sky —
from such a height above the shore is it looked upon —
form a picture, once seen, never to be forgotten.
* Standard, ist September, 1S75.
44 THE VICAR OF iMORWENSTOW
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 More-
wenstow cliffs. On the other side of the combe rises
Hennacliffe to the height of 450 feet above the sea, a
magnificent face of sphntered 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. Morwcnna. 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 minia-
ture 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, rocks, choughs, wheel
and scream around the crag, now fluttering a little way
above the head, and then diving down 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 sUdes 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 ai-hptefiov ytXacj-La, -ira/xfxTiTop tc yq of the poet.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 45
If this were quoted in the ears of the vicar of Morwen-
stow, 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 i^schylus
describes the sounds that reach his ears, not the sights.
Above, indeed, is the ' divine aether ' ; 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 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 him-
self ; 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 even-
ing, 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 recita-
tion, 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 :
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.
46 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
On a rushy knoll, in a moor in the parish of Mor-
wenstow, rises the Tamar/ and from the same mount
flows the Torridge.
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 I
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.
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 hcedest 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 I
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.
^ Tamar in Cornish is Taw-mawr, the great water ; Ta\'y
is Taw-vach, the lesser water.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 47
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, crouch-
ing 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 Jour-
dains, Kempthornes, Waddons and Martyns. The hall
gives access to a dark panelled parlour, with pecuhar 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 Westward
Ho ! 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. Pro-
bably 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 a bedroom ; but Mr.
Hawker pointed out its original destination to the owner,
and he at once threw down the lath-and-plaster parti-
tion, and restored the hall to its original proportions.^
The hall was also flat-ceiled across ; but the vicar of Mor-
wenstow discovered the oaken roof above the ceihng,
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.
^ 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 panelhng. 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 Worthies of Devon, gives a notice
of Sir John Kempthorne, Kt., who put up this panelling. He
is buried in the Morwenstow Church, where there is an in-
teresting incised stone to his memory under the altar. His
wife, Katherine Kempthorne, daughter of Sir Piers Courtenay
of Ugbrook, is also buried there.
48 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
Morwenstow Church stands on the steep slope of a
hill.
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 I 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.
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.
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 semi-
circular 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 tran-
sition 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 con-
torted 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 49
But his most singular fancy was with respect to the
chevron ornamentation on the arcade. When 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 orna-
ment 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 wakes : 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 heaUng 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 notiiing 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 con-
dition.
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 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
50 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
south arcade of the nave is much posterior to that on the
north side. One of the capitals bears the inscription :
THIS WAS MADE ANNO MVCLX, (1564)-
Another capital bears :
THIS IS THE HOUSE OF THE LORD.
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 Mor-
wenstow, the clerk said to him : " Please, your honour,
I have done you a very 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.^
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 ^vith 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
^ 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 51
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 over.
The floor he kept strewn with southernwood and thyme,
" for angels to smell to."
The east wall was falling, and in 1 849 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 draw-
ing and in colour. The ancient piscina in the wall is of
early English date.
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, ^■^d used for all seasons alike. Considering
the veneration in which Mr. Hawker held holy things
and places, a little more tidiness might have been ex-
pected ; but his altar was never very clean, the top hav-
ing 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 com-
munion-service standing at his altar ; but in later years
^ This, as has been already shown, is an error ; he con-
founded St. Morwenna of Cornwall with St. :^.Iod\venna of
Burton-on-Trent. At the " restoration " frescoes were dis-
covered throughout the church ; all but one were wantonly
destroyed.
52 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
his curates introduced a reading-desk within the chancel
near the screen. A deal kitchen-table likewise served
for the furnishing of the chnncel. 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 rub-
bish 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 creep
thence all along the church — an emblem, according to
him, of the Christian life.
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.
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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 53
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 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 :
Here Liet John Maning of , .
Who Died Without Issue . .
I AM Beried in
THE VI DaIE of Av
GVST 1 60 1.
John Manning of Stanbury, in Morwenstow, Uved
in the sixteenth century. He married Christiana Kemp-
thorne. About six weeks after their marriage the
husband was gored by a bull in a field between Tona-
combe 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 persiiasion, entreaty, and offering large
sums in vain, he had recourse to another expedient.
The vicar said to the farmer : " Does it ever strike
you, S , when lying in that bed, as you do of a
night, how many corpses have preceded you ? There
54 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
was first of all poor John Manning, all dead and bloody,
in 1 60 1, 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, she was dead. 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 I 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 chin
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 Chris-
tiana weeping her Ufe away. Think of that of a night.
You will find it conducive to good."
" 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 The Standard, already quoted, thus
describes his first acquaintance with the vicar of Mor-
wenstow :
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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOVV 55
on the sands. The office used by Mr. Hawker at such times
had been arranged by himself — not without reference to cer-
tain 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 Augus-
tine 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.
We have here one instance out of many of the manner
in which the vicar delighted in hoaxing visitors. 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
56 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
the spot a " lew " one (that is, a sheltered one), as from
the fancy that the refuge of the lambs should typify
the vicarage, the sheltcring-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 erec-
tion. Mr. Daniel King and Mr. Hawker were not very
cordial friends.
" Ha I " 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* 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."
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 j\Ir. 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 address-
ing a public audience, to s\nng his bunch of seals round
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 57
and round in his left hand. Directly he began his ora-
tion, 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 \v-ould 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, 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, wliich 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, ray lord," said Mr. Hawker. "He is
very Low Church."
Early next morning loud cries for assistance pene-
trated 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, rnd
58 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
allowed Jennjr 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 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. Phill-
potts. 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 splen-
dour, flaking the rocks and ruined walls with orange
and carmine ; and as he turned away he muttered the
line from Zanga :
I like this rocking of the battlements.
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 form-
ing 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 figured so
largely in Westward Ho ! were explored by them to-
gether ; and the vicar of Morwenstow was struck, as
every one have must been struck who accompanied Mr.
Kingsley under similar circumstances, by the wonderful
insight and skill which seized at once on the most char-
acteristic 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 59
his poetry the pecuUar feeling of the district, the subtle
aroma which, in less skilful hands, is apt to vanish
altogether.
His ballads found their way into numerous pubhca-
tions without his name being appended to them, and,
sometimes were fathered on other writers. In a letter
to T. Carnsew, Esq., dated January 2nd, 1858, he says
as much.
My Dear Sir, — A happy New Year to yours and you, and
many of them ! as v/e 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 1 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, which others have been attempt-
ing 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 Blackwood, 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 ! "
" 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 neigh-
bourhood of Tintagel Castle and Church are crested with
towers. Among these, that of Bottreaux Castle, or, as
^ Ancient Crosses in Cornwall, by J. T. Blight. Penzance,
1858.
* 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 Glennectan he afterwards resented as a literary
theft.
• Ecclesia . 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.
6o THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 impUcit behef in those parts."
THE SILENT TOWER OF BOTTREAUX.
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 ! "
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 1 "
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 I
But thank at sea, the steersman's hand.
The captain's voice above the gale.
Thank the good ship and ready sail.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 6i
" 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 !
" 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 ! "
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, wdthin twenty years, an old
seafaring man whom we will call Daddy Tregellas — his
real name has escaped me. A w^idow in the village died,
leaving a fair young daughter of eighteen, very delicate
and consumptive, without a home or relations. Daddy
Tregellas had known the wdow 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 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
62 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
tell of the tenderness of the old man for his young deUcate
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 iUness hke 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 wan-
dered 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 break-
ing 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 figurehead 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 The Pet."
And now the old love, which had wound itself round
the wile, began to attach itself to the little vessel.
Every day the old man was on the quay watching the
growth of The Pet ; he could not bear her out of his
sij:ht. When The Pet 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 The Pet.
The hatchways are all closed."
Eyes watched her bounding through the waves, now
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 63
on the summit of a huge green billow, now deep in its
trough, till she was lost to sight in the rain and spon-
drift.
That was the last seen of The Pet ; 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 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.
CHAPTER IV
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 liis Man, Tape — Kind-
ness to the Poor — Verses over his Door — Reckless
Charity — HospitaUty — 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.
MR. HAWKER in politics, as far as he had any,
was a Liberal ; and in 1857 he voted for Mr.
Robartes, afterwards Lord Robartes.
March 2b, 1857. My Dear Sir, — Your mangold is remark-
ably 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 b^' some
rascals, who came after the carriage, shouting, " Kendall and
64 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 IM 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 source of pride, that I was the first,
or well-nigh, I think, the only clergj-man in this deanery
who voted for a Free-trade candidate. Yours, my dear sir,
faithfully.
R. S. Hawker,
J. Carnsew, Esq,
... 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 break-
fast 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 there-
fore 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 hapened to Jem Ward ? " — " No, not I. Is he
hanged ? " — " Oh, no ! they say he is member of Parlia-
ment." — " W^ell, what of that? " — "Oh, but consider what
a thing for a fellow like that to get into the House of Commons
— such a blackguard.'" — "And pray, young man, where
should a blackguard go, but into the House of Commons,
eh ? "
Good-night, dear sir, good-night. Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker,
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 Exeter,
as he had been in 1857 for that of a Free-trade candi-
date for East Cornwall;
THE VICAR OF iMORWEXSTOW 65
MORWENSTOW, Dec. II, 1873. My dear Mr. and Mrs.
Mills, — 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. jNIiUs'
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 ElTord
home. How you must have exulted also at your husband's
strong position in London, and at the School Board ! He
-nust have been very deeply appreciated there, and will, of
ourse, succeed to the chairmanship of his district. You will
oe 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 1 incur deadly risk, I must go through my duty on
Sunday. Our dutiful love to you both. I am, yours ever
faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
It was liis intense sympathy with the poor that con-
stituted 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 Con-
stitution ; but his tender heart bled for the labourer,
whom he regarded as the sufferer through 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 ?
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 employ.
^A clergyman on whom he had calculated for his assistance
in his services.
c
66 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
The rate of wages is eight shillings a week, paid, not in
money, but by truck of corn.
A llxed 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 . . . nil : ol. os. od.
But, but. But in the year 1 860-61, 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." But, but,
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.
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. But, but, but
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.
A letter narrating the success of this a]ipeal is in my
hands, and may find a place here.
Feb. 21, 1 861. My dear Sir,— 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 67
divide twenty-five pounds and upwards among the really
destitute. I am much obliged to j'ou for your readiness to
allow my inlluence 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 accus-
tomed 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 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 b3' the new kind of hurricane,
the KVKK'jL'y, 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. Thej^ had
theirs at Kilkhaiupton two days before Mr. T 's christen-
ing. The PoughiU 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,
R. S. Hawker.
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 : —
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 ;
68 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
They weep such tears as others shed.
And now and then they smile ;
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, lor 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.
I know not why ; but when they tell
Of houses fair and wide,
Wliere 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 69
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 ros<^s 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
IMight 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 !
A letter to one ol the landlord.s in his parish shows how
vehemently Mr, Hawker could urge the claims of one
of the farmers.
MoRWENSTOW, May 21, 1867. My dear Mr. Martyn, —
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 dutj' 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 3'ou will forgive me if I venture to touch.
It is on the tenancy of your farm of Ruxmoore by Cann.
He has been m\' 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 frit-nd 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 nie
and to you. I do not imagine that you intend to exclude
70 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 candi-
dates, 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 sym-
pathy which Mrs. INIartyn 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 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 hesi-
tate 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 I "
Morwenstow, Jan. 22, 1857. My dear Sir, — It is no
longer possible to nourish the project which I have all along,
every week and day, intended to essay, viz., 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 occur-
rences 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 ; v.orked with me from 1835
to 1 85 1 ; then visited Australia as a gold-digger; returned
about two years agi ne 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 scaled in a chair, with the hand crushed
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 71
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, aud 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,
R. S. Hawker.
T, Carnsew, Esq.
The generosity of the vicar to the poor knew no 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 cot-
tagers, 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.
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 oil to Shop, to four
old people's houses, with a bottle of brandy for each. And
then he says : " There's two shillings for yourself ; and you
keep pulling at that bottle, and you'll keep yourself alive
r-
THE VICAli OF MORWENSTOW
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 da3^ for myself,
besides meat and drink.
" 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 hon that lurketh in his den to ravish the
poor."
The monetary value of the living was 1^365 . He
wrote up over the porch of his vicarage :
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 !
Of his overflowing kindness to the shipwrecked, men-
tion 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 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 73
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
Bidefoid, 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. Hciwker 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, ^^"hen he reached
Bideford Station he said : " Now, StanLke, I 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, ^end 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, v.hen 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."
74 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
The phaeton was brought to the door ; the vicar
mounted the box, the drunken servant was tunibled
inside, the door shut on liim, and off they started for
a long niglit drive with no moon in the sky, and frosty
stars looking down on the wintry earth.
Half-way between Bidcford and Morwenstow, in
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
5'et 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 Mor-
wenstow 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 predica-
ment last night."
Two days after he met the man again. In the mean-
time 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 whisky."
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 75
" You think you won't do it again ? "
" I'se very sure I won't, if you give me nu 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 hospitalit}'. Every one who visited Mor-
-.venstow 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 : ' ' 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 v/cnt over to call on him unex-
pectedly," 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
76 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
and filled our wine-glasses with it, mistaking it for
sherry. The joint was a fore-quarter of l.imb. 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 wliole breast and 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 liis own words :
Nov. 4, 1856. My dear Sir. — 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 lan-
tern, 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 be-
haviour 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 day. We mean, with your leave,
to come down to you early one day soon, and depart so as
THE VICAR OF MORWEXSTOW 77
to be at home before dark. Tell your son that on Saturday
night last, at eight o'clock, 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,
R. S. Hawker.
T. Carnsew, Esq.
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 chffs.
He then adopted a claret-coloured coat, with long
tails. He had the greatest aversion to an^^thing 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 in 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 worlv.
" See there ! the parson is washing potatoes ! " or,
" See there ! the parson is feeding the pigs ! " would be
exclaimed by the villagers, as they saw his servant
girls engaged on their work, in their master's house.
At first he went about in a college cap ; but after
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.
78 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
" Do, Hawker, let me find you a new hat : in your faU
you have knocked the brim off yours," said one.
" My dear -," he answered, " priests of the Holy
Eastern Church wear no briins 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 pecuhar 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 pei'sons who asked him imper-
tinent questions.
When Mr. Hawker went up to Eondon to be 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 jersej', 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
gall. Or, the first appearance of the vicar took place after
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 79
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
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 sur-
rounded by a serpent biting its tail, and the legend ix^vs.
Another bore the pentacle, with the name of Jehovah
in Hebrew characters in the centre. This was Solomon's
seal. " Witli 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 ; 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 v,'hich 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
8o THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
for doing so was his disapproval of the extravagances
of the Rituahst 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 congre-
gation of Christ's flock," etc. His administration of this
sacrament was most solemn and impressive ; and I
know of parents who have gone to IMorw^enstow for the
purpose of having their children baptised by him.
In celebrating marriage it was his A\ont to take the
ring and toss it in the air before restoring it to the bride-
groom. What was symboUsed by this proceeding I
have been unable to ascertain, unless it were to point
out that marriage is always more or loss 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 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 Durliam, which had been placed
in the shrine of St. Cuthbcrt, on the body. Mr. Hawker
bore a special reverence for the memory of St. Cuthbert,
who, living on his islet of Fame, the haunt of sea-mews,
taming the wild birds, praying, meditating amidst the
roar of the North Sea, he though 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 ijuaint 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 8i
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 jVIorwenstow
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 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 the}- 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 gi\e 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.
" 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 scecula scecttlorum."
The jackdaws took him at his word, and filled the
82 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
chimney with their piles of sticks which serve as nests.
Somehow rooks were persuaded to settle amonp the tree-
tops of his grove, and there the colony exists to the
present day. •-
Some years ngo, when Dr. Phillpotts was Bishop of
Exeter, a visit of the bishop to Morwcnstow hatl been
planned and decided upon. Mrs. Hawker insisted on
having tlie 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 tlic 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 tlie Well
of St. John, a spring of exquisitely clear water, which
he always employed for his font.
Sir j. Duller, afterwards Lord Churston, claimed
the well, and an expensive lawsuit was the result. The
vicar carried his right to the well, and Sir J. Duller
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 yound 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.
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 Morwcnstow ; except some woodcocks, which
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 83
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. A.sk God for strong angels, and He
will fulfil your prayer. Never forget Him, and He will never
neglect you.
CHAPTER V
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 Ganger's Pocket — Wrecking — The Wrecker and the
Ravens — The Loss of the Margaret Quail — The Wreck
of the Ben Coolan — " A Croon on Hennacliff " — Letters
concerning Wrecks — The Donkeys and the Copper Ore —
The Ship Morwenna — Flotsam and Jetsam — Wrecks on
14th Nov., 1875 — Bodies in Poundstock Church — The
Loss of the Caledonia — The Wreck of the Phoenix and
of the Alonzo.
WHEN the Rev. R. S. Hawker came to Morwen-
stow 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 John Bull says : " He found a manse
in ruins, and partly used as a barn ; a parish peopled
w^th w-reckers, 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 gi'ey 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
84 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
and respectable ; but the denizens of the hamlet, 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 IMorwenstow, ' the
cruel and covetous natives for the strand, the wreckers
of the seas and rocks of flotsanr and jetsam,' held as
an axiom and an injunction to be strictly obeyed : —
Save a stranger from the sea,
And he'll turn your enemy !
" 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 V>y ' shoving the drown-
ing man into the sea,' to be swallowed by the waves.
Clin ! 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 Cornisli custom was sup-
plied by the smuggler, and the gold of the v.-reck paid
him for the cursed abomination of drink."
One of Mr. Hawker's parishioners, Peter Barrow,*
had been, for full forty years, a wrecker, but of a much
more harmless description : he had been a watcher of
the coast for such objects as the waves might turn up
to reward his patience. Another was Tristam Pentire,*
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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 85
Local recollections of the man have moulded thenv
selves into the rhj^me :
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 !
His arrival on the north coast of Cornwall was sig-
nalised 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
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 thence-
forth 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
86 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 The
Black Prince. Once, with Coppingcr on board, she led
a revenue-cutter into an intricate channel near the Bull
Rock, where, from knowledge of the bearings. The Black
Prince escaped scathless, while the Icing'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 The Black Prince 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 sucli practices, ill-gotten gold began to flow
and ebb in the liands 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 it still extant. His signature is
traced in stern, bold characters, and under his auto-
graph is tlic 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 trades." They all converged at a head-
land which had the name of Steeple Brink. Here
the cliff sheered off, and stood 300 feet of perpendi-
cular height, a precipice of smooth rock toward 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 " Coppin-
ger's Cave." Here sheep were tethered to the rock, and
THE VICAR OF .AIORWEXSTOW 87
fed on stolen hay and corn till slaughtered ; kegs of
brand}' and hoUands were piled around ; chests of tea ;
and iron-bound sea-chests contained the chattels and
revenues of the Coppinger roj-alty of the sea.
The terror linked with Coppinger's name throughout
the coast was so extreme that the people themselves,
u-ild 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-tales 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.
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 follo-\\ing
Thursday. The smuggler anived, 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 off 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 liis doublc-tlionged whip round his head. He
lashed the back of the unfortunate parson, pursued
88 THE VICAR OF MORWEXSTOW
him, struck and struck again till he had striped him hke
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.
" 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, wath his arms cast with the grip of
terror round his bulky companion, held on like ^rim
death. Unbuckling his belt, Coppinger passed it round
Uncle Tom's thin body, and buckled it on his own
front. \Mien 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 Cop-
pinger, 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 announce-
ment 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-dehrious
state, muttering : " No, no ; I never will. Let him
mend his breeches v.ith 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 mis-
chievous and ungovernable from his youth. His
cruelty to animals, birds and to other children was
THE VICAR OF MORWEXSTOW 89
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 down-
wards 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
tie 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.^
Tristam Pentire* 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 ganger
' Footpirints of Former Men. 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 wrecked at Hastland
in 1792, and married to Ann (not Diana) Hamlyn in 1793.
The entry is in Hastland Parish Register : " Daniel Herbert
Coppinger of the King's lloyal Navy and Ann Hamlyn mar.
(licence) 3 August." She was the elder of two daughters
of Mr. Acklaad Hamlyn of Galsham of Hastland. She suc-
ceeded to the property, and died at Barnstaple, and was
buried at Hastland, 5th September, 1833, aged 82.
90 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
— never. And besides," said old Trim, "wasn't the
exciseman always ready to put vis to death if he could ? "
One day he asked Mr. Hawker : " ('an 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 ^^as
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 ? "
" 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 occu-
pied 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 of&cer, 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 ? "
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 91
" Whj', 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, 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 Witanstone.
To that Tristam one day guided his master, the vicar.
" And now, your honour," he said, " let me show you
the wonderfuUest 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, j-our 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 satis-
fied, 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 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
92 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
wrecked in the cove ; let us all start fair ! " and, fling-
ing 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 Footprints,
which was told him by an old man in his parish named
Tony Cieverdon.
" There was once a noted old wrecker, named Kins-
man : 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 ToAver-clifi, 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 to-
gether, 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 the 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 terribl37 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 21 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 93
was fired over the vessel, and so successfully that the
hawser was secured to the ship. Every life would, in all
probabilit}', 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 coast.
The Rev. A. Tlnnne, rector of Kilkhampton, at once
drove to ^lorwenstow. 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. \V
Valentine, rector of Whixley in Yorkshire, then resident
at Chapel, in the parish of Morwenstow.
" \Vhat 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 5'ou like ; but mark my words, no good comes
of turning to the West. Why," said he, " in the primi-
tive Church they turned to the West to renounce the
Devil."
His carriage came to the door, and he drove off with
Mr. Valentine, fast as his horses could spin him along
the hilly, wretched roads.
Before he reached Clovelly, a boat had put off \\dth
the mate from the ship, which was the Margaret Quail,
laden with salt. The captain would not leave the vessel ;
for, till deserted by him, no salvage 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 :
Firsi, the vicar of Morwenstow in a claret-coloured
94 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
coat, mth 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 Margaret Quail. 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.
Second in the procession moved the Rev. W. Valentine,
with purse full of gold in his hand, offering any amount
of money to the Clo\-eIly men, if they would only go forth
in the lifeboat to the wreck.
Third came the mate of the Margaret Quail, restrained
by no consideration of cloth, swearing and damning
right and left, in a towering rage at the cowardice of the
Clovelly men.
Fourth came John, the servant of ^Ir. Hawker, with
bottles of whisky under his arm, another inducement
to the men to relent, and be merciful to their imperilled
brethren.
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, a5 fast as possible, it was conveyed to the scene of
distress.
But, in the meanwhile, the captain of the Margaret
Quail, 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 95
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 Ciovelly men lost their repugnance to go to
sea. They manned boats at once, gained the Margaret
Quail, and claimed ;^3,ooo for salvage.
There was an action in court, as the owners refused
to pay such a sum ; and it was lost by the Ciovelly men,
who, however, got an award of ;^i,200. The case
turned somewhat on the presence of the dog on the
wreck ; and it ivas 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 the salvors was/600
to two steam-tugs (/300 each), and /300 to the Ciovelly
skiff and sixteen men. The ship and cargo, minus masts,
rigging, cables and anchors, were valued at /5,ooo.
Mr. Hawker went round the country indignantly
denouncing the boatmen of Ciovelly, 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 in-
habitants of that little fishing village. They would pro-
bably 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 justiy.
A fine vessel, the Ben Coolan, 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 call-
ing 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, canalmen, 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 eye of those who stood on the pier and chffs. 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, and spun him up in the
96 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
foam, and he was seen no more. The ship turned broad-
side to the waves, which tore her to pieces with great
rapidity. Only a few of the crew w^re saved. The
captain was drowned.
Mr. Hawker wrote shortly afterwards :
A CROON ON HENN.VCLIFF
Thus .said the rii^Iiinp raven
I'nto his huMi^ry mate :
" Ho. gossip ! for Bude Haven !
There he corpses six or ei^ht.
Cawk, cawk ! the crew and .-.kipper
Are wallowing in the sea.
So there's a >;ivoury sui)pcr
For my old dame and me ! "
" Cawk ! gaffer ! tliou art dreaming :
Tho shore hath wreckers bold,
\Voul<l rend the yelling seamen
From the clutcliing billows' hold !
Cawk. cawk ! thcv'd bound for booty
Into the dragon's den.
And shout. ' For death or chity ! '
If the prey were drowning men."
Loud laughed the Hstening surges
At the guess our grandam gave :
You miijht call them Boanerges
From the thunder of their wave I
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 I
Thev will save the captain's girdle.
And shirt,* if shirt there be,
But leave their blood to curdle
For my old dame and me."
^ A fact : the shirt was secured
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 97
So said the rushing raven
Unto his hungry mate :
" Ho, gossip I 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 I "
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 desper-
ately, 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. Noiv 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 thought, that a life was sacrificed for want
of knowledge."
Those of the crew who were saved proved to be a
f^d set of fellows. They got so drunk, that they could
noi attend the burial of their comrades.
MoRWENSTOW, Sept. 18, 1869. My dear Mr. Marty n, — I
will not say, forgive me for my silence. You must do that ;
but how can I state my m.iserie6 ? 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 bed-
room window at a blow, and drove us out of bed to dress
and go dowi. 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 tlie servants' room
till the morning. At dawn tidings came that a large vessel
^ The handwriting of this letter is very shaky, and difierent
from the usual bold writing of the vicar.
D
98 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 aUve
with people. Seven corpses came ashore for burial one by
one. Graves already dug, and shrouds prepared ; but more
yet. The cargo, coaJs, 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. Yours faithfully,
R. S. H.
MoRWENSTOW, Oct. 9, 1 869. My dear Mr. Martyn, — I
have devoted to you my first interval of freedom from pains
and crushing worry. Let no man hereafter ever accuse me
ef 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. . . . Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
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 tl""^,ir
knives on him. He had the presence of mind to i.ow
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 neigh-
bourhood, 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 99
Accordingly the whole crew with the captain came
to Kilkhampton Church, a beautiful restored building,
filled with old carved seats, rich modem stained 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-lilling 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 com 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 the
firm which owned the vessel Uved 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 recogni-
tion 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
loo THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
him that the firm would not be happy unless they could
make him some acknowledgment for his services and
hospitaUty, 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 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 a^ked 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 Morwenna.
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.
The flotsam and jetsam of a wreck are the property
of the Crown. The coast-guard are on the qui-vive
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 the 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 trans-
port 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 VICAR OF MORWENSTOW loi
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 oy the
coast-guard to make it worth their while to call in an
auctioneer, they hold an auction of their own ; but,
not being licensed, they cannot run the price of the
articles up, they therefore run them down. For in-
stance, 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 win-
dows, united, formed such a volume of sound that I had
to shout my loudest to be heard when reading the service.
Wlien 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 wnrecks."
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.
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 Modem." Whilst it was being
sung, one vessel foundered ; but the crew, six French-
men, came ashore in a boat. An hour or two earUer
the other went down, with aU hands on board.
102 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
On Monday and Tuesday bits of the wreck came
up in the coves, with Wilhelmina 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 chffs.
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. : —
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, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at
their wit's 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.
This psalm coming in its proper order seemed strangely
appropriate, read with those dead mariners for a con-
gregation.
The narrative of the wreck of the Caledonia 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.
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 I "
In a moment I was up, and in my cassock and slippers
rushed out. There stood my lad, weeping bitterly, and hold-
ing 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
* Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall, pp. 182-221.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 103
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, stiS 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 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 pdre, mon p^re 1 " 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.
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 :
I returned to the scene of death and danger, where my
man awaited me. He had found, in addition to the tvvo
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 aftersvards found, at three o'clock
that morning ; and, by the time the wreck was discovered
I04 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
she had been shattered into broken pieces by the fury of the
sea. The rocks and water 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 fol-
lowed with ready zeal as bearers ; and in sad procession we
carried our dead up the steep clifE, 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, hand-
ling in his curiosity the barometer, had broken the tube and
the whole of the quicksilver had run out. Had this instru-
ment, the pulse of the storm, been preserved, the crew would
have received warning of the sudden and unexpected 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
THE VICAR OF IMORWENSTOW 105
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 Caledonia 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 con-
nected 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 bluflf and broken headland
just by the southern boundary of my own glebe.] " I sang
out, ' Land ! ' 1 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 ? "
" 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 ! —
" Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave."
" 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 1
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
io6 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 " empow-
ered 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 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, The Hero, 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 bj^ the sea, that the coast-guard,
who went immediately on board, found the fire burning in
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 107
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 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 wUl 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 cap-
tain 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
io8 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
a part of a man ? " It was the mangled leaman's heart ;
and we restored it reverently to its place, where it had once
beat high 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 cap-
tain's grave the ligure-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.^
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. When-
soever afterward 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
^ 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 :
Such deeds as thine are registered in heaven,
A,nd there alone can due reward be given.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 109
the herd of the glebe has long been famous in the land ; and
hence, as Homer would have sung, hence came
Bleehtah, and Lilith, Neelah, Evan, Neelah, and Katy.
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 cUffs, 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 Phoenix 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, ofiered by
the Seaman's Burial Act, to which I have referred, and within
my own domain doubled always by myself, brought us many
a 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 clifEs, a loud and sudden shout called mo
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 I " 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
no THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 siglit^. Far, far above, loomed the tall
and gloomy headlands ol the coast ; around us foamed and
raged the boiling waves ; the moon cast her massive lowering
shadows on rock and sea ;
And the long moonbeam on the cold, wet sand
Lay, like a jasper column, half-upreared.
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, bafiled from the spot, before we had been able to
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 1
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 tide, and drilled a couple of holes in the surface with
rapid energy, to receive, each of them, that which he called
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW iii
a Lewis-wedge and a ring. To these the chains of the wind-
lasses 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 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
Old Ocean, with its everlasting voice.
As in perpetual jubilee, proclaims
The praises of the Almighty ?
Trees stand, like warders, beside their graves ; and the Nor-
man shingled church, " the mother of us all " dwells in silence
by, to watch over her safe and slumbering dead. And it
^ 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. — S. B.-G.
* With cross going before him, in his surplice, reciting
psalms.
112 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
recalls the imagery of the Hcly 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 sufiered neither the birds of
the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by
night."
A year had passed away when the return of the equinox
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 ran of sea between Lundy and the land ; and she
was now within three or four miles of our rocks. " Ah, sir I "
said Peter, " the coastmen say —
' From Padstowe Point to Lundy Light,
Ts a watery grave by day or night.'
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 found a
name, the Alonzo of Stockton-on-Tees, on her stern. That
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 113
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 decom-
pose ; 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 ol 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
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 sai4 the burial-service
114 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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
Alonzo 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 Alonzo 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 touch-
ing history transpired. The father, who immediately after-
ward 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 Alonzo 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 likeli-
hood 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
' The boat is rotted nearly away, the bows alone remain
tolerably entire. — G.S.B.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 115
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 !
CHAPTER VI
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.
ABOUT 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 reUgious people, and at-
tend church with great regularity and devotion. The
^ 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.
ii6 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
chief landowner and lord of the manor is Lord Clintor;
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 185 1, Lord CUnton 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 p.m., and then returned
to Morwenstow for evening prayer at five p.m.
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 Well-
combe, 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 " schol-
ards " ; and the vicar was generally required 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 everj^where."
" To think of that ! " interrupted the old woman.
" My Ezekiel must be a handsome lad ! But I'm in-
terrupting. 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 I "
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 117
" 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 I " 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,
no medical man for themselves, no beer-house, no shop ;
a man who travels for a distant town (Stratton) supplies
them -wdth sugar by the ounce, or tea in smaller quan-
tities still. Not a newspaper is taken in throughout
the hamlet, although they are occasionally astonished
and dehghted by the arrival, from some almost forgotten
friend in Canada, of an ancient copy of The Toronto
Gazette. This publication they pore over to weariness ;
and on Sunday they will worry the clerg^onan 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 assidu-
ously prayed for the welfare of Prince Frederick."
The people of Wellcombe were very ignorant. In-
deed, 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 school-
master of the old style in Devonshire ; and it may be
guessed that the Cornish fared not better for teachers
thia their Wessex neighbours.
This is an advertisement, said to have been written
over a little shop :
Roger Giles, Surgin, Parish dark and Skulemaster, Groser,
and Hundertaker, Respectably informs ladys and gentlemen
ii8 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
that he drors teef without wateing a minit, applies laches
every hour, blisters on the lowest tarms, and vizicks for a
Eenny a peace. He sells Godfather's Kordales, kuts korns,
unyons, dokters bosses, 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 figcrs. Young
ladys and genelmen larnes their grammur and langeudge, in
the purtiest manner, also grate care taken ofi 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.
I should have held this to be an invention inspired
by Caleb Quotem, in George Colman's play " The Re-
view " 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 ques-
tioning, the stories he heard of witch-craft and the
power of the evil eye.
Whenever he came across any one with a peculiar
eyeball, sometimes bright and clear, and at others cov-
ered 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 iii a
pecuUar 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 :
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 119
" 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 atmos-
phere which surrounded men, imperceptible to the senses,
which was the vehicle of spirit, in which angels and
devils moved, and which vibrated with spiritual influ-
ences 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 w^as 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.
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 atmos-
phere 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
beUeved was a witch. If any one combated his state-
ment 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 v/as 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
* Mark vii. 21 ; cf. also Prov. xxiii. 6, xxviii. 22 ; Matt. vi.
23 ; Luke xi. 34 ; Matt. xx. 15.
I20 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
eye and incantatioa worked. I ran out ten minutes after
to look at ray sow, which had farrowed lately ; and thera
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."
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 astonish-
ment 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 faggot 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 thunder-
bolt and shaked the very room and house. Up we
started, and my wife says : ' Oh, father, old Cherry's
up 1 I vnsh. I had gone after her with that there faggot.'
I confess I thought ia 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,
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 121
sir,' he went on to say, changing his tone to a kind of in-
dignant growl ' I do think, that when I call to mind how
I've paid tithe and rates faithfully aU 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 hghtning.' "
A farmer came to Mr. Hawker once with the com-
plaint : " 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 ; ajid 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
know are true, and which I give here as an illustra-
tion of the superstition which prevails in Devon and
Cornwall.
A boy of the parish of Bratton Clovelly, proving in-
teUigent 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 volun-
teered 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 deUvered against the prevaihng beUef in witch-
craft. The lecturer was heard patiently to the close,
and then up rose one of the principal fanners in the
place. Brown by name.
" Mr. Lecturer," said he, •' and all good people here
122 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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. "A^ell, 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 hves nigh AH Hallows on the Walls, I was shown
into 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 1 '
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 WTiite 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
been overlooked by an old woman named Betty Spry.
He said so to me, as sure as eggs is egges, 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 '11 boil.' Well, I
paid 'un a crown, and then I came here ; and I fetched
sticks from Lew Trenchard, and from Stowford, and
German's Week, and from Broadwood Widger ; and no
sooner were they Ughted 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 some-
thing. I was coming over Broadbury one night, and
somehow or other I lost my way. I was afraid of
failing into the bog — you know all about that bog,
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 123
don't'y, by the old Roman Castle ? There was a
gentleman — a sort of traveller, in my recollection —
was 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 black-
smith 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 some-
thing 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 I we've got hold of the tax-
cart I ' But when they pulled 'un up it was a phaeton.
So they let their grappling irons down again, and present-
ly 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 bUnkers 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 1 I've been wandering again
on Broadbury, and now I must return to the point.
Knowing what I did about the bog, I was a bit fright-
ened of faUing 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 hve in the old rummhng farm of
124 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
Southcot in X parish.' As imperent as possible
again the voice asked : ' Who ? who ? who ? ' ' Tez
Farmer Tickle, I tell'y I ' 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 I " echoed Farmer Tickle, " I put it to
the meeting. A man as says this was an owl, and
not a pixie, would say anything I " 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. Be-
fore 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 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 I 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 I "
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 Uve,' — whether Holy Scrip-
ter does not say that the works of the flesh are idolatory,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, and such like ?
Now, if witchcraft be all moonshine, then I reckon so be
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 125
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.
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 hght, and heard music and sing-
ing. He stood still, and looked and listened. Pass-
ing 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. Befors 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.
In the foreground is water, on which floats a pump-
kin, 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 WiUiam of Orange. On the hood sits a little elf,
with a red toadstool, as an umbrella, over the heads
126 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
of the king and queen. In the bow sits Jack-o'-Lanteni,
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-sheUs ; 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 : " Be-
ware 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."
" 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 toad-
stool 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 1 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."
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 127
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 Footprints of Former Men.
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
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 I " said Tony, chuckUng with dehght, " 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 hke 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 chffs and
streams fifty years come next Candlemas, and I've gone
and watched the water by moonhght and sunHght, days
and nights, on purpose, in rough weather and smooth
(even Sundays too, saving your presence) — and jny
sight as good as most men's — and yet I never could come
to see a merrymaid in all my Ufe ! 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, hke a coast-
guard man watching a boat, and got very near the noise.
He couldn't make out the words, but the sound was ex-
actly like Bill Martin's voice that singed second counter
in church ; at last he got very near, and there was the
merrymaid very plain to be seen, swimming about on
the waves hke a woman bathing, and singing away.
But my father said it was very sad and solemn to hear
T28 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
—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. A -d he an old man of sixty-seven, witli a
wife and a houseful of children at home I 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 bootifullcst merrymaid tl.at 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 I 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 ! "
CHAPTER VII
Condition of the Church last Crntury — Parson Radford — The
Heath of a Pluralist — Opposition Mr. Hawker met wtb— -
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
P«w — 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 appre-
ciate me "— Modryb Marya— A Parable— A Carol— Lo\ p
of Children — Angels — A sermon, " Here am I."
' j"'HE condition of the Church in the diocese of
A Exeter at the time when John Wesley ap-
peared was piteous in the extreme. Non-residence was
the rule : the services of the sanctuary were performeci
in the most slovenly manner, the sacraments were ad-
ministered rarely and without due reverence in too many
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 129
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 Morw-enstow.
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 par-
sonage, which often ended uproariously.
Bishop Phillpotts sent for him, and said : " Mr,
Radford, I hear, but I can hardly beheve it, that men
fight in your house."
" Lor', my dear," answered Parson Radford, in broad
Devonshire. " doan'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 with-
out 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 injunc-
tion 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 Httle."
*' With me, good heavens I " gasped Parson Radford,
*' No. Go down and tell his lordship I'm took cruel
bad with scarlet fever : 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*.
He was rector of Eastcote, rector of Eigncombe, rector
of Marwood, rector of Westcote, and vicar of JBarton.
Mr. Hawker used to tell the following story : —
When Parson Winterton lay on his death-bed, he
£
130 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
was visited and prepared for dying by a neighbouring
clergyman.
" What account can you render for the talents com-
mitted 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 bed-
clothes, he said : " I came into this diocese with nothing
— yes, with nothing — and now," and he began to cheek
off the names on the fingers of the left hand with the
forefinger of the right hand, " I am rector of Eigncombe,
worth ;^8o ; rector of Marwood, worth £^$0 ; rector of
Westcote, worth /560 ; vicar of Barton, worth /300 ;
and rector of Eastcote, worth a /looo. 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
tlock, 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 sur-
prised that he could not do it in a twelvemonth. He
was met with coldness and hostihty by most of the
farmers, who were, with one or two exceptions, Wes-
leyans, or Bible Christians. The autocrat of the neigh-
bourhood was an agent for the principal land-owner of
the district, and he held the people under his thumb.
With him the vicar speedily quarrelled : their charac-
ters 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 hostihty became open.
The agent thought he had dealt the vicar a severe blow
when he persuaded Sir J. BuUer to claim St. John's Well.
Mr. Hawker found himself baffled by the coldness of the
Dissenters, and the hostihty of the agent, which he had
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 131
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 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 : —
The only parish of which I can report favourably is my own
cure of Wellcombe. Morwenstow is, as it always was, Wes-
leyan to the backbone ; but at Wellcombe the church attend-
ance is remarkable. The same people are faithful and con-
stant 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 at Morwenstow.
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 :
132 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOVV
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
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 un-
christian, it must be remembered that Mr. Hawker had
met with great provocation. But it was not this provo-
cation which angered him against Mcthoilists and Bryan-
ites, for he was a man of large though capricious charity :
that which cut him to the quick was the sense that Corn-
ish Methodism was demoralising the people. Wesley-
anism was not so much to blame as Bryanism.
The Cornish Bryanites profess entire freedom from
obligation to keep the law, and the complete emancipa-
tion from irksome moral restraint of those who arc
children of God, made so by free grace and a saving
faith. One of their preacheis was a man of unblushing
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 sweet
Christian."
A favourite performance in a Bryanite meeting, ac-
cording 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 >«f/^e ensues.
Every one who hits thinks he is dealing the Devil his
death-blow ; and everyone who receives a blow believes
it is a butt from the Devil's horns.
Mr. Hawker had a capital story of one of those meet-
ings.
The preacher had excited the people to a wild con-
dition by assuring them he saw the Devil in person —
there 1 there ! there 1
" Where, where is he ? " screamed some of the people.
" Shall I hit 'un down with my umbrella ? " asked a
farmer.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 133
" 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.
" Wliere 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 dis-
mounted and opened the door to learn what had occa-
sioned it.
I give the account of a private Bible Christian meeting
from the narrative of an old Cornish woman of Kilk-
hampton.
" 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 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
ahve ; 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 liis hat, just as they du
corks of lemonade, to keep the spirits 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 meet-
ing 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.' "
134 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOVV
" So they 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 beginncd : ' 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, 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 1 '
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 bcginned, ' We worms of hearth ! '
and there her ended. So we waited a bit ; and then
Bill Martin says, ' Squcedge 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 beheve,' 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 thy
cabbidge, so he roars louder than afore, ' Faith ! my
friends ; have jaith ! 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,
hell-shaking faith, conquering faith, devil-driving faith,
a damned lot of faith ! ' And then he roars, ' There he
is ! I can zee 'un afiuttcring hover your heads, ye
sinners, just like my hands afiuttcring over the cann'l I "
" 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 135
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 t 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 into dinner ; it shooked all hover like. For
I tell'y, a woman as has had her biling ol 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 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 beau-
tifuUest tail — after a peacock — when first he came to
Kilkhampton ; but he bit it ofi in httle 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
136 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
himself up with his own body, and so got strangled in
himself. Well, but I was telling yu about ]3ill 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.
" Ah I 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 ahve. The story
lost nothing in the vicar's mouth.
Mr. Pengelly was very ill and hke to die. So one
night the Devil came to the side of his bed, and said
to him : " Mr. Pengelly, I will trouble you 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 I but I don't please at all," replies Mr. Pen-
gelly, lying down again and tucking his pillow under
his cheek.
" Well, sir, but time's up, yu know," was the re-
mark 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 Mor-
wenstow," says he by way of apology.
" If I must go, sir," says Mr. Pengelly, wiping his
nose with his blue pocket-handerchief 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.
•' Why, sir," says Mr. Pengelly, putting his blue
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 137
pocket handkerchief over his face, " I'm ashamed to
name it, but I shu'd hke to say my prayers. Least-
wise, 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 take 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'1-cnd 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
cannTs 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 ahve ; but let not the visitor to
his farm ask him what he keeps in his candle-box, or,
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 infor-
mant, " that Mrs. Pengelly hev tried a score of times
to get hold of the cann'1-cnd, 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."
T38 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
" If's that the case," says Mr. Pengclly, " 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. Pengclly 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. Pengclly was mighty pleased with his work-
man ; 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. Pengclly was up with the lark.
But the workman was up before Mr. Pengclly or the
lark either, and was digging diligently in the garden.
Mr. Pengcllcy 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 :
" ril tell yu what it is, sir, I like work ! I love it I
but I cannot dig without butcs 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. Pengclly.
"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."
" Wliat would a pair of shoes cost, now ? " asks
his employer looking at the man's feet wholly devoid
of leather soles.
" Feftcen shilling, maybe," says he.
" Feftcen shilUng I " exclaims Mr. Pcngelly ; " yu'Il
never get that to pay him."
" Then I must go to some other farmer who'll ad-
vance me the money," says the man.
" Now don't'y be in no hurry," says Mr. Pengclly,
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 shilhng, till yu'd paid up."
" Done," says the man.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 139
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."
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 kind-
ness that lay in his power to a Dissenter. He took
pains to instruct in Latin and Greek a young Method-
ist preparing for the Wesleyan ministry, and read
with him dihgently 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 kind-
nesses.
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
rehgious 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 I " said a friend.
" Clean and unclean beasts feeding together in the
ark," was his reply.
" But how odd that you should get them to meet I "
" 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
poming out of the room where the corpse lay.
r.jO THE VICAR OF MOKWENSTOW
" When is poor Thomas to be buried ? " aakeJ the
vicar.
" We are going to take hiin out of the parish," ans-
wered the widow ; " we thought you would not bury
liim, as he was a Dissenter."
" Wlio told yon tliat I would not ? "
The widow lady looked at the Xoncomformist minister.
" Did you say so ? " he asked of the preacher abruptly.
" Well, sir, we thought, as you were so mighty par-
ticular, 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 pul-
pits 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 I It
is contrary to Scripture ; for Scripture says : ' If a beast
do but touch tlie mountain, let him be stoned or thrust
through with a dart.' "
As an instance of despotic conduct towards a parish-
ioner, it would be difhcult to match tlic following in-
cident : A wealthy yeoman of Morwcnstow, 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 iiad erected
upon or in place of their old family seats to hide them-
selves 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 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 liim due notice, that, on a certain
THE VICAR OF J.IORWENSTOW 141
day and hour, it was his intention to demoHsh 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 \\^th 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 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. Morwcnna had been preserved unchanged whilst
dynasties had perished and empires had been over-
thrown. 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 tuned 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 tor-
ment.
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 tr^' him as he
had tried Job.
This belief that he had, of a special Providence
watching over him, must explain the somewhat pain-
ful 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 Uzziah
cannot put his hand to the ark without the Lord making
a breach upon him."
142 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 Chureh, and God docs not forget His
promises. Why, I have seen His promise kept again
and again. I know that God is no har."
" 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
da}' during that Lent, whilst the case was being tried
till 27th March, and offered up before the altar the
following prayer :
Almighty and most merciful God ! the Protector of all
that trust in Thee I 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 cau.se
of Naboth the Jezreelite, upon angry Ahab and Jezebel his
wife ; and as Thou didst strengthen the hands of Thy blessed
apostle St. Peter, in.somuch that .\nanias and Sapphira could
not escape just judgment when they sought to keep back a
part 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.
The attempt to deprive him Of the Well of St. John
§i|nally failed,'
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 143
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.
MoRWENSTOW, Sept. 20, 1850. My dear Mrs. M , —
. . 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 /. s. d. is always mournful, paralyses my will. A west win-
dow 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 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.
Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
It is painful to record this side of the vicar's char-
acter ; but without it this would be but an imperfect
sketch. He was, it must be borne in mind, an ana-
chronism. 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-
144 THE VICAR OF MORWEN'STOW
MoRWENSTOW, July 24, 1857. My dear Mrs. M , — 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 intro-
duction, I could write, in order to obtain the animals I seek ?
I want to lind 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 here-
on ? 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.
Yours always,
R. S. Hawker.
He had the greatest objection to hysterical rcllKion.
"Conversion," he said, " is a spasm of the gang-lions."
"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 Wcsleyan 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 sec ? 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.
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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 145
When the broad road is forsaken,
Breathe not a sound ;
And the narrow path is taken,
Breathe not a sound ;
When the angels are descending.
And the days, of sin are ending,
When heaven and earth are blending,
Breathe not a sound.
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,* when a
gust of wind took off Mr. Vincent's hat, and carried
it over the cliff.
Within a week or two a INIethodist 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 moment I raised my
eyes to heaven ; and I saw, in the spacious firmament
on high, the blue, etheral sky, a black spot. It ap-
proached, 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 the Methodist Reporter, or
146 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 chff, 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 :
Nov. i6, 1875. In the spring of this year, and consequently
before there could have been any idea of " Do mortuis," etc.,
I happened to find myself in company with two Morwcnstow
people, returning to their old homo. 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, Morwcnstow, 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 appre-
ciation 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 wcll-remcmbercd 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.,
\V. C .
"Talking of appreciation," as Mr. Hawker said
once, " the Scripttirc-readcr, Mr. Bumpus,* 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 bchef that Paul would take you by
THE VICAR OF MORWEXSTOW 147
the scruff of your neck and chuck ^'ou out of the win-
dow. 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
word was in the king's mouth that the voice fell from
heaven which took it from him."
MoRWEXSTOw, Jan. 2, 1850. My dear Mrs. M-
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, " sud-
denly " ! 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. Moore's prayer, " that we
may all meet and be merry in heaven " I ... I am to do
something again for the new series of Tracts for the Christian
Seaso>is. 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."
Yours faithfully,
R. S. H.\WKER.
The psalm came in due time with this introduction : —
MODRYB MARYA : AUNT MARY.
A CHRISTMAS CHANT.
[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
i^S THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
of kindred, but as words of kindly preeting and tender respect.
It was in the spirit, therefore, of this touching and graphic
usafje, that they were wont, on the Tainar side, to call the
Mother of (iod, in their loyal language, Modryb Marya, or
Aunt Mary.]
Now, of all the tree's by the kings highway.
Which do you love the best ?
Oh ! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,
The bush with the bleeding breast !
Now, the holly, with her drops of blood, for me ;
For that is our dear Aunt Mary's tree I
Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour's name,
"lis a plant that loves the poor ;
Summer and winter it shines the same,
Beside the cottage door.
Oh I the holly, with her drops of blood, for me ;
Beside the cottage door.
Oh ! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me ;
For that is our kind Aunt Mary's tree I
'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 I
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 I
The following was sent to the sanae young girl, P
M :
MoRWENSTOW, February, 1853. Drar P , — I have
copied a little parable-story for you. Tell me if you can under-
stand it. May God bless you, my dear child, whom I love
for your father's sake I Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
Natum ante omnia sa;cula.
The first star gleamed over Nazareth, when thus the Lady
said unto her Son : " Jesu, wilt thou not arise and go with
THE VICAR OF xMORWENSTOW 149
rae into the field that we may hear the sweet chime of the
birds as they chant their evening psalm ? " — " Yea, Marj',
mother," answered the awful Boy, " yea, for I love their music
well, I have loved it long. I listened, in my gladness, to the
first-born voices of the winged fowl, when they brake 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
to'-cen-birds of our Spirit, when He should go forth from us to
thrill the world of time."
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 mediaeval 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 pubHshed with the
signature " Nectan " in a Plymouth paper :
A CAROL OF THE KINGS.
[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 that west-
ward-way, was and is the Southern Cross ! It was not a
solitary signal-fire, but a miraculous constellation, a pentacle
^ How a thing can be " chronicled in a myth " is not easy
to understand. Myths not infrequently get recorded not
chronicled. — S. B.-G.
I50 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 I 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
lirst-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 ever-
more 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 !]
Three ancient men in Bethlehem's cave
With awful wonder stand :
A voice had called them frum 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,
Bri^;ht Shcm 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 Jcsu'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."
We began this chapter with stories illustrating the
harsh side of Mr. Hawker's character. We have slided
insensibly into those which show him forth in his gentler
nature. There was in him the eagle and the dove : it
is pleasanter to think of the dove-Uke 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 owfi whims.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 151
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 vists 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 stru^jle, 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 his face. And I
watched him as he went away. Look, Margaret I 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 outhne of its contents, and to give me
whole passages.
His text was i Sam. iii. 4, " Here am I ! "
More than a thousand years ago St. IMorAvenna came from
Wales, from Brecknockshire, where was her father's palace :
she loved the things of God more than the things of men.
152 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
And then the wild Atlantic rolled against these clifls 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 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 Mor-
wenna answered with brave heart and childlike simplicity,
" Here am I ! "
And Morwenna came. She built herself a cell at Chapel-
piece, 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 Baptiscr, who preached in a wilder-
ness 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 con-
secrated 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 tho
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 153
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 ! "
And the angel came down to keep guard here, with flaming
sword that turueth 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 com-
missioned 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 disap-
pointment ? My head rests on an angel's bosom, and an
angel's arms encircle me.
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
154 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
stands upon another of Morwenna's church, so long will thera
be a priest to answer God's call, and say, " Her* 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 ! " '
CHAPTER Vni
The Vicar of Morwenstow as a Poet — His Epigrams — "The
Carol of the Pruss " — " Down with the Church " — " The
Quest of the Sangrcal " — Editions of his Poems — Ballads
— " The Song of the Western Men " — " The Cornish
Mother's Lament " — " A Thought " — Churchyards.
WHEN 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 whicli 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 Fellowcs* canvassed for North
Devon, at the time when the surplice controversy was
at its height, and went before the electors as the cham-
pion of Protestantism, and " no washing of the parson's
shirt."
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 :
Thou ridden ne'er shalt be, by prophet or by priest :
Balaam is dead, and none but he would choose thee for his
beast I
And he slipped the paper into the hand of the excited
but not eloquent speaker.
^ 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.
* Afterwards Lord Portsmouth.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 155
He had a singular facility for writing off an epigram
on the spur of the moment. In the midst of conversa-
tion he would pause, his hand go to the pencil that
dangled from his button-hole, and on a scrap of paper,
the fly-leave 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-asser-
tion, Mr. Hawker said : " Conceit is the compensation
afforded by benignant Nature for mental deficiency."
His " Carol of the Pruss," ist Jan., 1871, is bitter :
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 1 "
" 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.
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 ! "
156 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 I " Thereupon
Mr. Hawker wrote the lines :
Shall the grey tower in ruin bow ?
Must the babe die with nameless brow ?
Or common hands in mockery flinj,'
The unblessed waters of the spring ?
No ! while the Cornish voice can riiiR
The Vyvyan cry, " Our Church and Iving ! "
Shall the grey tower in ruin stand
When the heart thrills within the hand,
Ani beauty's lip to youth hath given
The vow on earth that hnks 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 stol6d priest to tell
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 ! "
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
allegiance to the Liberal. But when the Pubhc Worship
Bill was taken up by Mr. Disraeli, and carried through
Parliament by the Conservative Government, his laith
in the Tory prime minister failed as wholly as it had in
the leader of the Liberal party ; and he wrote the follow-
ing bitter epigram on the two prime ministers :
An English boy was born, a Jew, and then
On the eighth day received the name of Ben.
Another boy was born, baptized, but still
In common parlance called the People's Will I
ipour Unes in the last verse I have supplied, as the copy sent
mo was defective. — S.B.-G.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 137
Both lived impenitent, and so they died ;
And between both the Church was crucified.
Which bore tlie brand, I pray thee, tell me true —
The wavering Cliristian, <x the doubtful Jew ?
There is another epigram attributed to him, but
whether rightly or not I am not in a position to state :
Doctor Hopwood,* the vicar of Calstock,* is dead ;
But, De mortuis nil nisi bonmn, is said.
Let this ma.xim be strictly regarded, and then
Doctor Hcpwood will never be heard of again !
The following pretty lines were addressed to a child,
the daughter of an attached friend, who was budding
into beautiful womanhood. It was written in 1864.
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.
A lady was very pressing that he should write some-
thing in her album — she thought his poems so charming,
his ballads so dehcious, his epigrams so delightful, etc.
Mr. Hawker was impatient at this poor flattery, and,
taking up her album, wrote in it :
A best superfine coat - - -550
A pair of kerseymere small-cloths - 2 14 o
A waistcoat with silk buttons - - i 10 o
;^9 9 o
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
158 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 Morwcnstow. But, if the two poems be
regarded without 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 Sangrcal " 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 Sangrcal,* the true
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.
There it remained till
Evil days came on.
And evil men : the garbage of their sin
Tainted this land, and all things holy lied.
*There is considerable doubt as to the origin of the name
Sangraal, Sangrail or Sangrcal. It has been variously de-
rived from Sang-r6al, Tnie Blood, and from Sanc-Orazal, the
provenval for Holy Cup. The latter is the most probable
derivation.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 159
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 tire curved like a molten vase
Around the bush
and all was gone.
After the lapse of centuries I^ng 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 Galahead — 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
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 feehng
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 :
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.
i6o THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
All things were strange and rare : the Sangreal
As though it clung to some ethereal chain.
Brought down high heaven to earth at Arimath^e.
The idea of the poet :
The conscious water saw its God, and blushed —
in reference to the miracle at Cana, occurs with a change
in Mr. Hawker's verses, with reference to the Last
Supper :
The selfsame cup, wherein the faithful wine
Heard God, and was obedient unto blood.
After the loss of the Holy Grail :
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 uightly stars.
The Eastward craving of Mr. Hawker, the point to
which his heart and instincts turned, find expression
in this poem repeatedly :
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.
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 I 'mid visions such as thine,
'Twere well to grasp the Sangreal, and die.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW i6i
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."
Ha ! sirs, ye seek a noble crest to-day —
To win and wear the starry Sangrcal,
The link that binds to God a lonely land.
Would that my arm went with you like my heart !
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 — alone !
Aye ! 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 gloam in solitary snow :
The lonely one is ever more the king !
Here are some beautiful lines on Cornwall :
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 gleam an echo from the winds of song !
Mr. Hawker's poems were repubhshed over and over
again, with a few, but only a few, additions.
i62 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
The pieces written by him as a boy, Tendrils, by
Reuben, were never reprinted, nor did they deserve it.
He saw that clearly enough.
In 1832 he pubhshed his Records of the Western Shore ;
in 1836, the second series of the same. In these ap-
peared his Cornish ballads.
They were republished in a volume entitled Ecclesia,
in 1 841 ; again, with some additions, under the title,
Reeds Shaken by the Wind, in 1842 ; and the second
cluster of the same in 1843.
They again appeared with " Genoveva," in a volume
called Echoes 0] Old Cornwall, in 1845. " Genoveva "
is a poem founded on the beautiful story of Genevieve
de Brabant, and appeared first in German Ballads, Songs,
etc., edited by Miss Smedley, and published by James
Burns, no date.
His Cornish Ballads, and the Quest of the Sangreal,
containing reprints of the same poems, came out in
1869. The Quest of the Sangreal was first published in 1864.
In 1870 he collected into a volume, entitled Footprints
of Former Men in Cornwall, various papers on local
traditions he had communicated to Once a Week, 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 INIacaulay 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 Bristol,
was one, " The people of Cornwall, a fierce, bold and
athletic race, among whom there was a stronger pro-
vincial feeling than in any otiier 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 Enghsh ground."
All over the country the peasants chanted a ballad, of
which the burden is still remembered :
And shall Trelawney die ? and shall Trelawney die ?
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason whj- !
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 163
The miners from the caverns re-echoed the song with
a variation :
Thea thirty thousand underground will know the reason why I
The refrain is ancient, but the poem itself was com-
posed by Mr. Hawker. This is its earUest form : it
afterwards underwent some revision.
THE SONG OF THE WESTERN MEN.
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
^^'ill know the reason whj' !
What ! will they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
And shall Trelawney die ?
Then twenty thousand underground
Will know the reason why !
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 I will they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
And shall Trelawney die ?
Then twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why 1
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 I will they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen,
And shall Trelawney die ?
Then twenty thousand underground
Will know the reason why !
i64 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
The other is a touching little ballad, the lament of a
Cornish mother over her dead child ; which well illus-
trates the sympathy which always welled up in the kind
vicar's heart when he met with suffering or sorrow :
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 ;
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 I
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 !
The following beautiful verses, of very high order of
poetical merit, have not previously been published :
A THOUGHT.
[30th Aug., 1866. Suggested by Gen. xviii, 1-3.J
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 I
A wavy wilderness of sand between ;
Such pavement, in the Syrian deserts, trod
Bright forms, in girded albs, of heavenly mien.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 165
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 !
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 1
This poem was sent to an intimate friend with this
letter :
Dear Mrs. M , — I record the foregoing thought for you,
because it literally occurred to me as I looked from the win-
dows of your house, across the sand towards the sea. Forgive
the lines for the sake of their sincerity, etc. , . .
He wrote a poem of singular beauty on the auroral
display of the night of loth 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 open-
ing of the door to receive the dead. The following
passage from his pen refers to the same idea :
Churchyards. — 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
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
1 66 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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, R. S. H.
MoRWENSTOW.
CHAPTER IX
Restoration of Morwenstow Church — The Shingle Roof — The
First Ruridecanal Synod — The Weekly Offertory — Cor-
respondence with Mr. Walter — On Alms — Harvest
Thanksgiving — The School — Mr. Hawdcer belonged to
no Party — His Eastern Proclivities— Theological Ideas —
Baptism — Original Sin — His Preaching — Some Sermons.
THE church of jNIorwenstow 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 dov/n the gallerj'-, 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 des-
cription of a mason wdio 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 re-
shingled, and this question was before the vestry during
serveal years. The parish offered to give the church a
roofing of the best Delabole slate, but the vicar stood
out for shingle. The ratepayers 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 shingle
roof he would have, or none at all. A gentleman wrote
to him, quoting a passage from Parker's Glossary of
Architecture 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 uncon-
vinced. " Our parson du stick to his maygaims," said
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 167
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 root 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 uniformit)'. " 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."
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 :
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 usuage 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 fore-
noon, then and there, after divine service, to deliberate with
your brethren in chapter assembled. I remain, reverend sir,
your faithful servant,
R. S. Hawker,
The Rural Dean,
February, 1844.
i68 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 every-
where re\aved throughout the Church of England,
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 pre-
paring 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 The Times.
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 The English Churchman, for 1844. Mr.
Walter made this statement the basis of an attack on
the system, and especially on Mr. Hawker, in a letter to
The Times.
Mr. Hawker replied to this :
Sir, — 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 parisliioners,
in a letter which I have just read iu a recent number of
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 169
The Times. You have done so by a garbled copy of a statement
which appeared in The English Churchman, 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 sup-
pressed 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 : Be-
cause 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, there-
fore they shall have no charity from the Church ; because
they have little, therefore they shall have no more. You in-
sinuate 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 supposi-
tion ! 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 miscon-
ceptions of yourself and others as to the nature and intent of
the otfertory 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 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
I70 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 ex-
ample, 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 ! A.s if one of the three con-
ditions of our Christian covenant was to expire during the
administration of Sir Robert Peel ! . . .
And now, sir, I conclude with one or two parting admoni-
tions 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 mys-
teries 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 ageJn 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 undis-
tinguished race ; but we are apt, when unjustly assailed, to de-
fend ourselves in straightforward language, and to utter plain
admonitions, such as, on this occasion, I have thought it my
duty to address to yourself ; and I remain your obedient
servant,
R. S. Hawker.
Nov. 27, 1844.
Now there is scarcely a church in England in which
a harvest thanksgiving service is not held. But pro-
bably 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.
To THE Parishioners of Morwenstow.
When the sacred psalmist inquired what he should render
unto the Lord for all the benefits thai He had done unto aim,
he made answer to himself, and said : " I will receive the cup of
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 171
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 plente-
ousness. I,et 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 v>-as 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 v.ine is red." Fur-
thermore, let us remember, that, as a multitude of grains of
wheat are mingled into one loaf, so we, being many, are in-
tended to be joined together into one, in that holy sacrament
of the Church of Jesus 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, 5'ea, 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."
The Vicar.
The Vicarage, Morwenstow, Sept. 13, 1843.
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 v/hich 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 hfe.
But in 1 85 7 he wrote a letter to a friend, who has
sent the letter to The Roch, from which I extract it.
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
1 On 1st Oct., T.r.rnmas Day, the eucharistic bread was
anciently made of tlie new corn of the recent harvest. This
custom Mr. Hawker revived.
172 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 eccentricit}'. My mode of life, again, does
differ from that of most of my clerical neighbours ; for while
they belong, some to one 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.
In 1845 he issued the following curious notice in
reference to his daily prayer and his school :
Take Notice.
The vicar will say Divine service henceforward every morn-
ing at ten and every evening at four. " Praised be the Lord
daily, even the God that helpeth us, and poureth His benefits
upon us." (Ps. Ixviii. 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).
Mr. Hawker was a High Churchman, but one of an
original type, wholly distinct from the Tractarian
of the first period, and the Rituahst 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.
In November, 1861, he wrote :
Dr. Bloxham was an ancient friend of mine (at Oxford).
One of a large bod)' of good and learned men, all now gone,
and he only left. How I recollect their faces and words 1
Newman, Pusey, Ward, Marriott — they used to be all in the
THE VICAR OF INIORWENSTOW 173
common-room every evening, discussing, talking, reading. I
remember the one to whom I did not take was Dr. Pusej'.
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.
Mr. Hawker turned his eyes far more towards the
Eastern Church than towards Rome. His mind was
fired by Mr. Collins-Trelawney's Peranzabitloe, or the
Lost Church Found, the fourth edition of which ap-
peared 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 inde-
pendent of Rome, having its own local peculiarities
with regard to the observance of Easter, and the ton-
sure, 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 hght which can be brought to bear
on it from Irish sources. The ancient British, Scottish
and Irish churches did not follow the Oriental rule v/ith
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*
When Dr. J. Mason Neale's History of the Holy Eastern
Church 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 in-
duced 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 never 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.
174 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
A few of his short notes of exposition on Holy Scrip-
ture have come into mj'^ hands, and I insert one or two
of them as specimens of the poetical fancy which played
round Gospel truths.
' O |U€(7iT7)s. A mediator is not one who prays. Christ's
manhood is the intermediate thing which stands between the
Trinity and man, to hnk 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 is, and consti-
tutes, mediation.
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. Augustine's
early Manichaeism 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 washes,
the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the mind ap-
proving 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
Of sweet bells jangled, out of tune.
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 VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 175
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 in-
gredient of sin infused into the veins of every man.
Sin is, according to Luther, of the essence of man.
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 foetus 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 ghmpses 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.
Ah ! woe is me ! for I have no grace
Nor goodness as I ought :
^Institutes, lib. 11., c. z, sect. 13. * Ibid., sect. 18.
176 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
I never shall go to the happy place,
And 'tis all my parents' fault.
His teaching on the Eucharist he embodied in a ballad
entitled " Ephphatha." An old bhnd man sits in a hall
at Morwenstow, that of Tonacombe probably.
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.
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 •
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 1
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.
The application of the parable is palpable. Mr.
Hawker appended to the ballad the following note :
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 ! ^
^ Note in Ecclesia, 184T.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 177
The following passage occurs in one of his sermons :
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 that that our Lord and Master,
before He suffered death, called unto His presence the twelve
men, the equal 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 rem.arkable
gesture and deed, the cup, and taught the twelve also the bles-
sing 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. I^ikewise 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 or-
dained, 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
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 out-
ward 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 de-
livered 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.e., 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.e., 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 ever-
lasting 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
173 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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.
Mr. Hawker, holding, as has been shown, that media-
tion was distinct from intercession, admitted that the
dead in Christ could pray for their brethren struggUng
in the warfare of hfe, as really and more effectuallj'' than
they could when living. If the souls 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 w^as 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 privi-
lege 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 faintiest 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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 179
Catholicism and Popery have really nothing neces-
sarily in common. The first is a sj'^tem 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 Tartarj?^ with Buddhism.
Popery is a centralisation in matter of Church govern-
ment : 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 En^iish Church are radically
liberal in their views of Church government ; and if
they stri\-e with one hand to restore forgotten doctrines,
and reinstate public worship, with the other they do
battle for the introduction of ConstitutionaUsm 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 re-
generating and reforming power, a parasitic growth
draining it of its life-blood. 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
i8o THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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
nlother, that in His miraculous nature she did not par-
take ; that in the functions of His Godhead she had
nothing to do with him."
The Rev. W. Valentine, rector of Whixlcy, perhaps
the most intimate friend Mr. Hawker had, writes to
me of him thus :
During the first six months of my residence at Chapel
House, Morwenstow, September 1S63, 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, viz. {a) 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 {b) his constant
allusions to the Roman Catholics as " Romish Dissenters,"
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 mem-
ber of the Church of England, believing thoroughly
in her Divine Mission and authority. But it is quite
THE VICAR OF iMORWENSTOW i8i
possible, that, in moments of excitement and disap-
pointment, 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.
Mr. Valentine writes in another letter to me :
I have only one sermon to send you, but to me 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 as-
sured that whenever he preached it, his thoughts would wander
onward to that coming day when liimself, as he contem-
plated, 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 extempore. His habit was to take a prayer-book into
the pulpit, and expound the Gospel for the da3^ 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 extempore preaching,
" basketsful " of his sermons were destro5'ed under the follow-
ing 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 remem-
bered 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.
He refers to this destruction ia another letter to
Mr. Carnsew :
Dec 6, 1857. My dear Sir, — To-morrow I send for my last
load of materials for building, the close of a long run of outlay
extending through nearly thirty years. Bude, Whitstone,
Trebarrow, Morwenstow, have been the scenes of my architec-
ture. Anderson writes that he has bought a cottage of yours.
i82 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
I am glad of it for his wife's sake. I wrote to him oflering a
young pig of mine, and twelve MS. sermons, for a young boar
cf 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 energ3^
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
w^orship, and come again to you."
He pointed out in his sermon how that in Morwen-
stow and many other villages, the church is situated
at som.e distance from the congregation. At Oke-
hampton 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 w^hich 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 done purposely, that
those who went up to Jerusalem to worship miglit 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 aiijgel counts the paces that
lead to the house of God and records them all in
heaven.
" Abide ye here with the ass," aw^ay from the hill
of the Lord, from the place of sacrifice ; tarry, dumb
ass and hireling, whilst the son goes on under the guid-
ance 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
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 183
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."
CHAPTER X
Th<; First Mrs. Hawker — Her Influence |over her Husband —
Anxiety about her Health — His Fits of Depression — Let-
ter on the Death of Sir Thomas D. Acland — Reads Novels
to his Wife — His Visions — Mysticism — Death of his Wife
— Unhappy Condition — Burnii,:^ of his Papers — Meets
with his Second Wife — The Unburied Dead — Birth of his
Child — Ruinous Condition of his Church — Goes to Lon-
don — Sickness — -Goes to Boscastle — To Plym.outh — His
Death and Funeral — Conclusion,
MRS. HAWKER was a very accomplished and
charming old lady, who thoroughly under-
stood 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 ele-
gance, the story of Guido Goerres, the Manger of the
Holy Night; and it was published by Burns in 1847.
The verses in it were turned with grace and facility.
Another of her books was Follow Me, 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 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.
Ash Vv'edxesday, 1853. My dear Mrs. M ,— Amons
my acts of self-research to-day one has regarded you, the wife
1 84 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 praj^er. And now I feel relieved at having writ-
ten 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 3'ou 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 wliich
I have drawers full. But I print no more.
The friend to whose widow he thus writes died in
1846, He then wrote to a relative this note of sym-
pathy :
Your letter has filled us with deep and sincere sorrow.
We fear'^d 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.
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 con-
stantly " 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."
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 185
He sviotc on 2iid Jan., 1868 :
Wheresoe. er 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 :
" A billowy sea and a shattering wind,
The cUffs before, and the gale behind,"
but, thank God, no wrecks yet on our iron shore.
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.
MoRWENSTOw, July 27, 1S61. My dear Mrs. Mills, — 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 j^ou ! My poor dear wife, who is ill,
oifers 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,
1 am, dear Mrs. Mills, yours faithfully and affectionately,
R. S. Hawker.
During his wife's blindness and the gentle fading
away of a well-spent, God-fearing hfe, 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 haa a ten-guinea subscription to Mudie's Library,
and whole boxes of novels arrived at the vicarage ;
r86 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
these he dihgently 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 his
eyes, ' his eager mind was far away in that wondrous
dreamland \A'hcre 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 con-
ception even of the names of hero and heroine. These
stories interested him in no way : they related to a world
oi 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 dieam 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 : INIorwenna,
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 Fouque's exquisite tale. Or, he saw angels ascending
and descending in his dark chancel, and heard " a noise
of hymns."
A gentle sound, an awful light !
Three angels bear the holy Grail.
\^'ith folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleei^ing 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.
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.
THE VICAR OF ilORvVENSTOW 187
with almost the disgust of a Manicha}an. 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 disen-
tangle 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.
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 flickeruig 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 :
HERE RESTS THE BODY OF
CHARLOTTE E. HAWKER,
FOR NEARLY FORTY YEARS THE WIFE OF ONE OF THE
VICARS OF THIS CHURCH,
She DIED Feb. 2, 1863.
There is sprung up a light for the righteous, and joyful
gladness for such as are true-hearted.
1 88 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
The text had reference to her bUndness.
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.
MoRWENSTow, Oct. i6, 1864. My dear Mrs. M-
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 arn 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.
After the death of Mrs. Hawker, he fell into a con-
dition 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 con-
sequently exceedingly biUous, and his depression grew
the greater.
He was sitting, crying hke 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 prob-
ably have been burnt down, had not a Methodist
minister seen the blaze through the window, as he hap-
pened 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 I " 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.
A friend tells me that during the time that he was a
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 189
widower, the condition he was in was most sad. His
drawing-room, which used to be his deUght, full of old
oak furniture, and curiosities from every corner of the
world, was undustcd 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 fo. :unate 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 wiic, 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 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 wligre the traveller could be accommodated was a
I90 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 re-
tired 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 cliest 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 blick 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 trembhng hand 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 digagi 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 ! "
Tlicre 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 illumined his countenance, and he
broke into a laugh and an explanation at once. " Lor',
you needn't trouble yourself : it's 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 we salted her
in till the thaw shu'd come ; and I'm darned if I hadn't
forgoU&n all about her, and the old gal's never been
buried yet."
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 191
" So, you see," Mr. Hawker would say, when telling
the story, " in Cornwall we do things difierently 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 of
Dartmoor ; but it wants the point of the Cornish
tale.
The Rev. W. Valentine, vicar of Whixley, in York-
shire, bought Chapel House, in the parish, in the October
of 1863, and, ha\ang 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 Pohsh lady. Miss Kuczynski. Her father had
been a Pohsh noble, educated at the Jesuit University of
Wilna who, having been mixed up with one of the peri-
odical, 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 Kuczj-nski, 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 hghted 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 character ; but it was not her
graceful person and winning demeanour that so im-
pressed me, as her strong intellect, high principle and
simihtude 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 I ' 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.
tga THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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 :
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.
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 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 Ufe. It was
a cloud which hung over lum, and never was lifted off.
As he walked, he moaned to himself. He saw no pos-
sibility 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. Tiie 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 :
Jesus said : " Ye have done it unto me ! "
The ancient church of Worwenstow, on the northern shore
of Cornwall, notwithstauading a large outlay of tlie present
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 193
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 £5^0 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 tliis 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,
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 con-
sist 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.
A voluntary rate raised £^2 ; and offertory, £2 2s.
Jcld. 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 :
16 Harley Road, South Hampstead, April 20 1874
My dear Str,—l 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 ollertories here for the restoration of my erand
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 averaee for
two years at evensong has been under five pounds But I find
the great clergy shy to render me the loan of their pulnits
Do >ou know any one of them ? Can ycu help me ? knj
C
194 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
about St. Morvvenna. Cannot I see your proof sheets of my
Sainfs Lite, or can you in any way help me m the dehvery of
her legend to London ears ? At all events, do vvnte^ I seem
nearer to you here than at home. If you come up, do find us
out. I write in haste.
Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
The previous October he had written to me frorn
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 m corre-
spondence with him about St. Morwenna not being
identical with St. Modwenna ; liis 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.
i6 Harley Road, Hampstead, March id, 1874. My dear
Mrs M ,-You may well be astonished at ^Y addre.s
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
Sid scrutiny has pronounced me free from any perilous
organic disease, and^is of opinion, that ^yith rest and a few
simple remedies, " there is work ^-^^J^%^^,;^^^ ^
R. S. Hawker.
But the grand old man was breaking. There was
pain of body, and much mental anxiety about his
Lmily He could not sleep at night: his bram was
constLtly excited by his Pf-niary troubles and the
sufferings he endured from his malady. By the advice
S Ms doctor, I believe, it was that he 1-d --u-e to
narcotics to allay the pam, and procure him rest at
night. Mr. C. Hawker wrote to me :
Towards the close of his life, my brother (I am grieved to
stateu'renet' da habit he had coJltracted on the death of his
?rst wi e, but had abandoned-of takmg opium. This had a
mmt iniurious effect on his nerves : it violently excited him for
rwhile^ and then cast him into fits of the most profound de-
prls oA. When under this influeuce he wrote and spoke in
?S wildest and most unreasonable manner, and said thmgs
which in moments of calmer judgment, I am sure he bitterly
deplored. He would at times work himself mto the greatest
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 195
excitement about the most trivial matters, over which he
would laugh in his more serene moments.
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 refer-
ence 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 Morwen-
stow, to fresh suffering, disappointment, and anxieties.
I give a few of his last letters to one whom he regarded
as his best friend.
MoRWENSTow, Sept. 22, 1874. My dear Valentine, — 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 exceed-
ingly. 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 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 im-
plore 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 shud-
dering heart testify. Oh, God bless you !
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
196 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
Mr. Valentine found him the same in faith, though sadly
failing in mental and bodily power.
Nov. 13, 1874. My deny Valentine, — 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 ha\e
advertised in three papers, but only one applicant. I ha\ e
invited him to come and see for himself, but he has not yet
appeared or written. We are so remote and forlorn that un-
less a man be very sincere and honest 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 subscrip-
tions 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 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.
Nov. 17, 1874. My dear Valentine,^. . . 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 kill-
ing me, and your presence would soothe the dreadful depres-
sion 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 pres-
ence 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 any-
thing you want.
' Then returned to Yorkshire.
» In the previous month, October
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 197
At Christmas he was very ill, and thought that hfc's
hist pnge was being turned, and that before the daisies
reappeared in Morevvenstow 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 ]\Ir.
Valentine, begging him to allow him to take Dean
Lodge, and make it a cottage for his curate. " Write
to me at once," he said, " to relieve my poor broken
mind of one of the pressures 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 Bocastle, 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 Morwen-
stow ? 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 chffs 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 in
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 diffi-
culty would be raised about his being laid in the grave
he had prepared for himself in the church where he had
ministered so long.
However, later on, he often quoted St. Monica's
last prayer : " Lay my body anj^where — only do not
forget to remember me at the altar of God."
t9^ THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
Is it to Tue wondered at, that now there are Mor-
wenstow people who say, that, since his death, they
have seen th^e old man standing at the head of the
stone tliat covers his wife, looking mournfully at the
blank space where he had hoped his name would be
cut ; and that others, who have seen him, aver that
they have heard his famiUar sighs and moans from the
same spot ? ;
Whilst he was at Boscastle he was neither mentally
nor bodily himself. His brother, Mr. Claude Hawker,
wrote to me that he was often in a state approach-
ing 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 neces-
sary for them to move out of the house. Mr. Robert
Hawker would have returned to Mowenstow, 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 hke himself in any way, and it was no
■act of his to go to Plymouth. He dechned to do so
■for some time, until at last, most reluctantly, and against
-his better judgment, he was persuaded to do so."
On the other hand, Miss E. Newton says that the
A^isit 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 visita-
tion at Stratton, fearing lest the bishop should take it
as a shght. The rector of Kilkhampton quieted Kim
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 VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 199
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 liis making a kind of grievance of it is hardly
consistent witli the idea that even at that time he was
in lieart a Roman Catholic."
On Sunday, ist 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
CathoUc Cathedral, to high mass ; and in the evening
he accompanied her to benediction, and was pleased
with the beauty of the 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 exex'cise again.
Fcehng 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 at possible, and to
return to the home he loved, hallowed by the feet of
St. Morwenna, and rendered dear to him by the as-
sociations 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 lor from Mor-
wenstow, and a biretta, a distinctively priest's cap,
was borrowed for him — a thing he never wore him-
self — and he had himself photographed in cassock.
200 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
surplice, stole and biretta, as a priest. It was hi»
last conscious act ; and it is certainly very inconsis-
tent with the supposition that at the time he disbelieved
in his orders. This photograph was taked on Saturday,
7th Aug. : on Monday, 9th Aug., he was struck down
with paralysis.
His action in this matter was the more extraordi-
nary, as he had at one time manifested an extreme
repugnance to having his hkeness taken. He has
told me himself that he would have inscribed on his
tombstone : " Here lies the man who was never photo-
graphed." For a long time he stubbornly refused the
most earnest requests to be taken ; and his repug-
nance 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. ^
It was the old man's last act, and it was a very em-
phatic 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 loth, on their way back from
Plymouth to Morwenstow, intending to drive the dis-
tance in the day.
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 de-
parture 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
^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, how«
ever, afterwards taken by Mr. Thorn at Bude, with his
wife and children. That of hiiu in surplice and stole is by Mr.
Hawke of Plymouth.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 2oi
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 Mor-
wenstow 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. Claude 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 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 atten'ioi^s.
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's recovering sufficiently to discuss final
arrangements of money affairs, and that it was there-
fore useless to stay in Plymouth, he returned to Stratton.
Mrs. Hawker and her friend, finding themselves
unnblc to raise the sick man in bed, sent for his servant-
man from Morwenstow ; and he arrived on Friday
202 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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
sleeping and waking.
On Saturday morning Mrs. Hawker informed him
that she was going to send for the Roman Catholic
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."^
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 re-
cognition might fade away instantaneously, and he
again lapsed 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 Mans-
field was introduced into the dying man's chamber ;
and the sacraments of baptism, penance, extreme
unction and communion, four in all, were adminis-
tered 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.
Youth, manhood, old age, past,
Come to thy God at last !
^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.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 203.
The funeral took place on Wednesday. i8th August.
The body had been transferred to the Roman Catholic
Cathedral the night before. At 10 a.m. a solemn
requiem mass was sung by the Very Rev. Canon WooUet,
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 re-
moved 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 :
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER
FOR FORTY-ONE YEARS VICAR OF MORWENSTOW.
WHO DIED IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH,
ON THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION OF OUR BLESSED LADV^
1875.
Requiescat in Pace. Amen.
It is far from my intention to enter into contro-
versy over the last sad transaction in the life of himi
whose memoir I have written. The facts are as I
have stated, and might have been made clearer had
I been at hberty 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
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 deaths if there have appeared in
204 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
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.
Dens, a great authority, in his Theologia Moralis et
Dogmatica, 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 uncon-
sciousness before death — baptism may be administered,
if there be reason to conjecture that the patient desired
it when of sound mind. And, as no proofs are laid
down for testing the desire, the rule is a very elastic
one."
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 un-
conscious, such a man cannot be absolved. Marchan-
tius, in his Candelabrum MysHcum, 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.
^De Baptismo Adultorum : " Amentes et furiosi non bap-
tizentur, nisi tales a nativitate f uerint : tunc etiam de lis
judicium faciendum est, quod de infantbus atque in fide
Ecclesiae baptizari possunt. Sed si dilucida habeant intervalla
dum mentis compotes sunt, baptizentur, si velint. Si vero
antequam insanirent, suscipiendi Baptismi desiderium osten-
derium ostenderint, ac vitae periculum immineat, etiamsi non
sint compotes mentis, baptizentur. Idemque dicendum est de
eo, qui lethargo aut phrenesi laborat, ut tautum vigilans et
intelligens baptizetur, nisi periculum mortis impendcat, si in
eo prius apparuerit Baptismi desiderium."
*Dens, Theologia Moralis et Dogmatica, Tract, de Sacra-
mentis in Cenere, § 45 : " De iis, qui quandoque habuerunt usum
rationis, sed jam eo carent, judicanda est dispositio secundum
voluntatem et disposilionem quara habuerunt sanae mentis
existentes. Observandum tamen, quod, si aliquando habeant
lucida intervalla, tunc Sacramentum eis non sit ministranduni
extra necessitatepi, nisi dum mentis compotes sunt."
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 205
Practically, no doubt, moved by desire to assure
the salvation of the patient, Roman Catholic clergy
will charitably trust to their being a disposition, on
very slight grounds. The following instance will
show this, communicated to me by a learned Enghsh
Divine : " Some time ago a lady wrote to me for coun-
sel, 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 Cathohc wTote a letter to her, which she for-
warded to me to read, blaming her very severely for
not having seized the opportunity for baptising him,
on the ground that he might have changed his views,
and might have desired baptism, and that the sacrament,
so administered, would have 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 JNIarchantius.
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 Eng-
lish Church, and had shown no desire of secession.
I cannot dismiss this part of my subject wdthout
dealing briefly wdth an accusation made against Mr.
Hawker by certain correspondents in the papers. They
did not shrink from charging him with having been
for many j'ears a Roman Cathohc at heart, only holding
on his position of the Church of England for the sake
ol 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 w^as a consenting party to the
reception, how far he had gone towards contemplating
such a change when incapacitated by paralysis from
206 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
forming a decision, I cannot decide. The testimony is
conflicting. I hesitate to behove that it was his in-
tention 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 da3% 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 con-
scious 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, behefs and
prejudices lay clearly seen in his mind, as the quartz
and mica and horneblende 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 torm.
Be true to Church, be kind to poor,
O minister, for evermore !
were his lines cut by him over his vicarage door.
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 JNIorwenstow said to
him : " Go, and bid the young men entering the holy
ministry be honest, loyal, true." Is that the exhor-
tation of a man conscious in his own heart that he is
a traitor ?
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 Corn*
\yall before a Pope of Rome was thought of."
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 207
A clergyman in the diocese of London, who knew
him well, thus writes :
I think I never read any announcement with greater sur-
prise 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 medi-
tated 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 con-
fidential 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 know-
ledge 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 hon-
our, and of bold 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 duti-
ful 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 which with 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 unpadding defender, and in whose com-
munion it was his hope and prayer to die.
Nevertheless I think it possible, that during the
last year or two of his life, when failing mentally as
2o8 THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
well as bodily, and when labouring under llie excite
ment or subsequent depression caused by the opinni
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 Rome-
ward. But we must consider the man as he was when
sound in body and in mind, and not when stupefied
by pain, and the medicines given to deaden the pain.*
I have laboured, above all things, in this book, to give a
true picture of the man I describe : I have not painted
an ideal portrait.
And now my work is done. I have written truth-
fully the life of this most remarkable man : I have
taken care to " nothing extenuate, nor aught set down
in maUce." I cannot more worthily conclude my
task than with the peroration of Mr. Hawker's visi-
tation sermon, already quoted.
' 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 pre-
fer, 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,
^I have omitted from this edition some controversial matter
that has ceased to be of interest.
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW 209
and Hur is gathered to hia fathers also ; but, because of their
righteous acts in the matter of Rephidim, their memorial and
their name Hve and breathe among us for example and ad-
monition still. So shall it be with this generation. He, our
spiritual 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 Ms 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 remem-
brance 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 companj'^ appointed to
go down upon the foe with the sword of the Lord and of
Gideon, and to prevail — honour and everlasting remembrance
'or their fearless names ! If, in their zeal, they have ex-
( oeded ; 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. Verilv,
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 v>'ere they that, when the morning was yet
spread upon the moutains, 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 com-
pany 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 1
210
APPENDIX A
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D«c. 26, 1656 .
July 6, 1656
Jan. 19, 1642
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Mr. Rouse.
My Co. Anindell.
To my best friend, Mrs. Grace Gren-
vile.«
Sir John Trelawney.
Mr. Wheare.
Mr. Wheare,
Mr. Rashleigh.
My Co. Harris of Haine.
His brother.
His brother.
Mr. Arscott.
To the Lady Jane Grenville.
The Right Worshipful Sir John
Grenville
For my honoured brother Sir John
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The Lady Grace Grenville .
The Lady Grace Grenville .
Sir Bevilie Grenville.
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Sir Bevilie Grenville
Sir Bevilie Grenville
Sir Bevilie Grenville
Sir Seville Grenville
Sir Bevilie Grenville
Sir Seville Grenville
Sir Bevilie Grenville
Lady Grace Grenville .
Damaris Arscott .
William Grosse
J. Thornehill
Sir Seville Grenville
Sir Bevilie Grenville
Lady Grace Grenville .
1
APPENDIX A
213
APPENDIX B
SERMON BY REV. R. S. HAWKER
PREACHED AT LAUNCESTON, 1865
Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world (Matt, xxviii. 20).
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 rever-
ence 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 illustra-
tion 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 im-
perative by the signature of God ; inasmuch as it exacted
utter obedience, and yet indicated no ceremonial atonement
for defect, was another argument of a mutable creed. The
impress of change, the character of incompletion, were trace-
able 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
APPENDIX B 215
fevelation. 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 righteous (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, inter-
fered 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
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 mysterj^ and
constituted the regenerative and introductory rite of a vast
religion.
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
2x6 APPENDIX B
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 invented 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 ordina-
tion 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 Judaea, 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
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-foundevl 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 super-
natural 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
APPENDIX B 217
at that hour of awe. The fishermen of Bethsaida to arise
from their nets to convert the nations ! Unknown GaUlaeans
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 ser-
vants, 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
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 very 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 coun-
tries, 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 ascen-
sion 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 super-
natural 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 circumstances 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 bafSed the malice of Pagan
antiquity, then, in the next section of her history, heresy and
schisms within her walls tried her foundations, and assayed
ai8 APPENDIX B
her strength. In this peril He was with her always — vouch-
safed other nxanifestations 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 attri-
butes 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 suggestion 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 cen-
turies 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 lire 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 I 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 sus-
tain the spiritual fabric whereto we belong. The circum-
stances that originate with ourselves to impair our ecclesiasti-
cal validity appear to be, firstly, a spirit of concession. The
right hand of paternitj' is too often extended, when the glove
over 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 pre-
judice and error are congenital with the human mind. But
the wanderers from our discipline and doctrine forget that they
have \'oluntarily 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
APPENDIX B 2ig
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 unfavour-
able 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 cereraony on our part, future
stability may accrue to this Church of England, let us re-
member 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 vani+y in theological opinion and private
interpretation among the members of our own body. For
example, it is matter of lamentation, that the terms " ortho-
dox " 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 behoves every sincere friend to ecclesi-
astical order, to deprecate the exhibition of internal di\ersity,
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
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 argu-
ment 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
220 APPENDIX B
a retrospect of these remarks is, that the erection of our
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 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 sur-
viving 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 I He is with us
always, even unto the end of the world !
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AND Confedekate.- Sister Lucie Vinken.— Life's Littj'
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Traveller. — The Sympathetic Whuk. — The Lord of Life. —
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