Read Ebook: The Vicar of Morwenstow: Being a Life of Robert Stephen Hawker M.A. by Baring Gould S Sabine

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Ebook has 1192 lines and 115350 words, and 24 pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, your peg's surely mazed, maister."

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

At Oxford Mr. Robert Hawker made acquaintance with Macbride, afterwards head of the college; and the friendship lasted through life.

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

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

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

Nanny, thoroughly aroused by this unnatural proceeding of her old iron vessel, peered despairingly after it, and shouted at the top of her voice:--

"Massy 'pon my sinful soul! art gawn off--taties and all?"

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

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

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

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

And shall they scorn Tre, Pol and Pen, And shall Trelawny die? Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!

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

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

Of this period of his life, it is chiefly his many jests which have lingered on in the recollection of his friends and relations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Robert Stephen Hawker obtained the Newdegate in 1827: he took his degree of B.A. in 1828, and then went with his wife to Morwenstow, a place for which even then he had contracted a peculiar love, and there read for holy orders.

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.

Ordination--The Black Pig, "Gyp"--Writes to the Bishop--His Father appointed to Stratton--He is given Morwenstow--The Waddon Lantern--St. Morwenna--The Children of Brychan--St. Modwenna of Burton-on-Trent--The North Cornish Coast--Tintagel--Stowe--Sir Bevil Grenville--Mr. Hawker's discovery of the Grenville Letters--Those that remain--Antony Payne the Giant--Letters of Lady Grace--Of Lord Lansdown--Cornish Dramatic Power--Mr. Hicks of Bodmin.

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 satisfaction. The pig was called Gyp, and was intelligent and obedient. If Mr. Hawker saw that those whom he visited were annoyed at the intrusion of the pig, he would order it forth; and the black creature slunk out of the door with its tail out of curl.

It was whilst Mr. Hawker was at Tamerton that Henry Phillpotts was appointed Bishop of Exeter. There was some unpleasant feeling aroused in the diocese at the mode of his appointment; and the bishop sent a pastoral letter to his clergy to state his intentions and explain away what caused unpleasantness. Mr. Hawker wrote the bishop an answer of such a nature that it began a friendship which subsisted between them till the death of Dr. Phillpotts. Whilst Mr. Hawker was curate of Tamerton, on one or two occasions the friends of the labouring dead requested that the burial hour might be that at which the deceased was accustomed "to leave work." The request touched his poetical instinct, and he wrote the lines:--

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 unbecoming it would be for him to assume the position of vicar where his father had been, and still was, curate. In his letter to the bishop he urged his father's long service at Stratton; and Dr. Phillpotts, at his request, obtained the presentation for Mr. Jacob Stephen Hawker to the vicarage of Stratton.

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

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

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

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

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

Little or nothing is known of the vast majority of these saints. They have left their names and their cells and holy-wells behind them, but nothing more.

They had their lodges in the wilderness, Or built their cells beside the shadowy sea; And there they dwelt with angels like a dream. So they unclosed the volume of the Book, And filled the fields of the Evangelist With thoughts as sweet as flowers!

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.

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