Description of Morwenstow—The Anerithmon Gelasma—Source
of the Tamar—Tonacombe—Morwenstow Church—Norman
Chevron-Moulding—Chancel—Altar—Shooting Rubbish—The Manning Bed—The
Yellow Poncho—The Vicarage—Mr. Tom Knight—The Stag, Robin
Hood—Visitors—The Silent Tower of Bottreaux—The Pet of Boscastle.
A WRITER in _The Standard_ gives this description of Morwenstow: “No
railway has as yet come near Morwenstow, and none will probably ever
approach it nearer than Bude. The coast is iron-bound. Strangely
contorted schists and sandstones stretch away northward in an almost
unbroken line of rocky wall to the point of Hartland; and to the
south-west a bulwark of cliffs, of very similar character, extends to
and beyond Tintagel, whose rude walls are sometimes seen projected
against the sunset in the far distance. The coast scenery is of the
grandest description, with its spires of splintered rock, its ledges of
green turf, inaccessible, but tempting from the rare plants which nestle
in the crevices, its seal-haunted caverns, its wild birds (among which
the red-legged chough can hardly be reckoned any longer, so much has it
of late years lessened in numbers),[13] 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 and more really terrible than any of the Cormorans or the
Goemagots who have left their footprints and their strongholds on the
hills of Cornwall. The sea and the coast here are, in truth, pitiless;
and, before the construction of the haven at Bude, a vessel had no
chance whatever of escape which approached within a certain distance of
the rocks. Such a shipwreck as is described in Galt’s story of _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 without much loss of life. The little
churchyards along the coast are filled with sad records; and in that of
Morwenstow the crews of many a tall vessel have been laid to rest by the
care of the vicar himself, who organised a special band of searchers for
employment after a great storm.”[14]
The road to Morwenstow from civilisation passes between narrow hedges,
every bush on which is bent from the sea. Not a tree is visible. The
whole country, doubtless, a century ago was moor and fen. At Chapel is a
plantation; but every tree crouches shrivelled, and turns its arms
imploringly inland. The leaves are burnt and sear soon after they have
expanded.
The glorious blue Atlantic is before one, with only Lundy Isle breaking
the continuity of the horizon line. In very clear weather, and before a
storm, far away in faintest blue, the Welsh coast can be seen to the
north-west.
Suddenly the road dips down a combe; and Morwenstow tower, grey-stoned,
pinnacled, stands up against the blue ocean, with a grove of stunted
sycamores on the north of the church. Some way below, deep down in the
glen, are seen the roofs and fantastic chimneys of the vicarage. The
quaint lyche-gate and ruined cottage beside it, the venerable church,
the steep slopes of the hills blazing with gorse or red with heather,
and the background of sparkling blue sea half-way up the sky—from such a
height above the shore is it looked upon—form a picture, once seen,
never to be forgotten.
The bottom of the glen is filled with wood, stunted, indeed, but
pleasant to see after the treeless desolation of the high land around.
A path leads from church and vicarage upon Morwenstow cliffs. On the
other side of the combe rises Hennacliffe to the height of 450 feet
above the sea, a magnificent face of splintered and contorted schist,
with alternating friable slaty beds.
Half-way down Morwenstow cliff, only to be reached by a narrow and
scarcely distinguishable path, is the well of St. Morwenna. Mr. Hawker
repaired it; but about twenty years ago the spring worked itself a way
through another stratum of slate, and sprang out of the sheer cliff some
feet lower down, and falls in a miniature cascade, a silver thread of
water, over a ledge of schist into the sea.
On a green spot, across which now run cart-tracks, in the side of the
glen, stood originally, according to Mr. Hawker, a chapel to St.
Morwenna, visited by those who sought her sacred well. The green patch
forms a rough parallelogram, and bears faint traces of having been
levelled out of the slope. No stone remains on another of the ancient
chapel.
From the cliff an unrivalled view can be had of the Atlantic, from Lundy
Isle to Padstow point. Tintagel Rock, with its ancient castle, stands
out boldly, as the horn of a vast sweep against glittering water, lit by
a passing gleam behind. Gulls, rooks, choughs, wheel and scream around
the crag, now fluttering a little way above the head, and then diving
down towards the sea, which roars and foams several hundreds of feet
below.
The beach is inaccessible save at one point, where a path has been cut
down the side of a steep gorse-covered slope, and through slides of
ruined slate rock, to a bay, into which the Tonacombe Brook precipitates
itself in a broken fall of foam.
The little coves with blue-grey floors wreathed with sea-foam; the
splintered and contorted rock; the curved strata, which here bend over
like exposed ribs of a mighty mammoth; the sharp skerries that run out
into the sea to torment it into eddies of froth and spray—are of rare
wildness and beauty.
It is impossible to stand on these cliffs, and not cite the ἀνήριθμον
γέλασμα, παμμῆτόρ τε γῆ of the poet.
If this were quoted in the ears of the vicar of Morwenstow, he would
stop, lay his hand on one’s arm and say—
“How do you translate that?”
“‘The many-twinkling smile of ocean.’”
“I thought so. So does every one else. But it is wrong,” with
emphasis—“utterly wrong. Listen to me. Prometheus is bound, held
backwards, with brazen fetters binding him to the rock. He cannot see
the waters, cannot note their smiles. He gazes up into the sky above
him. But he hears. Notice how Æschylus describes the sounds that reach
his ears, not the sights. Above, indeed, is the ‘divine æther’; he is
looking into that, and he hears the fanning of the ’swift-winged
breezes,’ and the murmur and splash of the ‘fountains of rivers’; and
then comes the passage which I translate, ‘The loud laugh of ocean
waves.’”
A little way down the side of the hill that descends in gorse banks and
broken rock and clean precipice to one of the largest and grandest of
the caves, is a hut made of fragments of wrecked ships thrown up on this
shore. The sides are formed of curved ribs of vessels, and the entrance
ornamented with carved work from a figure-head. This hut was made by Mr.
Hawker himself; and in it he would sit, sheltered from storm, and look
forth over the wild sea, dreaming, composing poetry, or watching ships
scudding before the gale dangerously near the coast.
It was in this hut that most of his great poem, “The Quest of the
Sangreal,” was composed.
A friend says: “I often visited him whilst this poem was in process of
composition, and sat with him in this hut as he recited it. I shall
never forget one wild evening, when the sun had gone down before our
eyes as a ball of red-hot iron into the deep. He had completed ‘The
Quest of the Sangreal,’ and he repeated it from memory to me. He had a
marvellous power of recitation, and with his voice, action and pathos,
threw a life into the words which vanishes in print. I cannot forget the
close of the poem, with the throbbing sea before me, and Tintagel
looming out of the water to the south:—
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.
On a rushy knoll, in a moor in the parish of Morwenstow, rises the
Tamar,[15] 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!
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 heedest not! thy dream is of the shore,
Thy heart is quick with life; on! to the sea!
How will the voice of thy far streams implore
Again amid these peaceful weeds to be!
My soul! my soul! a happier choice be thine,—
Thine the hushed valley and the lonely sod;
False dream, far vision, hollow hope, resign,
Fast by our Tamar spring, alone with God!
In the parish of Morwenstow is one very interesting old house,
Tonacombe, or, as it was originally called, Tidnacombe. It belonged
originally to the Jourdains, passed to the Kempthornes, the Waddons, and
from thence to the Martyns. The present proprietor is the Rev. W. Waddon
Martyn, rector of Lifton.
It is an ancient mansion of the sixteenth century, quite perfect and
untouched, very small and plain, but in its way a gem, and well
deserving a visit. It is low, crouching to the ground like the trees of
the district, as for shelter, or as a ptarmigan cowering from the hawk,
with wings spread over her young. A low gate, with porter’s lodge at the
side, leads into a small yard, into which look the windows of the hall.
The hall goes to the roof with open timbers; it is small—thirty feet
long—but perfect in its way, with minstrel’s gallery, large open
fireplace with andirons, and adorned with antlers, old weapons and
banners bearing the arms of the Jourdains, Kempthornes, Waddons and
Martyns. The hall gives access to a dark panelled parlour, with peculiar
and handsome brass andirons in the old fireplace, looking out through a
latticed window into the old walled garden, or Paradise.
It is curious that Mr. Kingsley, when writing _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.
Probably he did not know of the existence of this charming old mansion.
The minstrel’s gallery was divided off from the hall, and converted into
a bedroom; but Mr. Hawker pointed out its original destination to the
owner, and he at once threw down the lath-and-plaster partition, and
restored the hall to its original proportions.[16] The hall was also
flat-ceiled across; but the vicar of Morwenstow discovered the oaken
roof above the ceiling, and persuaded Mr. Martyn to expose it to view. A
narrow slit in the wall from the bedroom of the lady of the house
allowed her to command a view of her lord at his carousals, and listen
to his sallies.
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! 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 semicircular arches are richly carved with Norman zigzag and
billet: one is plain, eventually intended to be carved like the other
two. The remaining two arches are transition early English pointed and
plain. At the spring of the sculptured arches, in the spandrels, are
very spirited projecting heads: one of a ram is remarkably well
modelled. The vicar, who mused over his church, and sought a
signification in everything, believed that this represented the ram
caught in a thicket by the horns, and was symbolical of Christ, the true
sacrifice. Another projecting head is spirited—the mouth is contorted
with mocking laughter: this, he asserted, was the head of Arius. Another
head, with the tongue lolling out, was a heretic deriding the sacred
mysteries.
But his most singular fancy was with respect to the chevron
ornamentation on the arcade. When first I visited the church, I
exclaimed at the beauty of the zigzag moulding.
“Zigzag! zigzag!” echoed the vicar scornfully. “Do you not see that it
is near the font that this ornament occurs? It is the ripple of the lake
of Genesareth, the Spirit breathing upon the waters of baptism. Look
without the Church—there is the restless old ocean thundering with all
his waves: you can hear the roar even here. Look within—all is calm:
here plays over the baptismal pool only the Dove who fans it into
ripples with His healing wings.”
The font is remarkably rude, an uncouth, misshapen block of stone from
the shore, scooped out, its only ornamentation being a cable twisted
round it, rudely carved. The font is probably of the tenth century.
The entrance door to the nave is of very fine Norman work in three
orders, but defaced by the removal of the outer order, which has been
converted into the door of the porch. Mr. Hawker, observing that the
porch door was Norman, concluded that his church possessed a unique
specimen of a Norman porch; but it was pointed out to him that his door
was nothing but the outer order of that into the church, removed from
its place; and then he determined, as soon as he could collect
sufficient money, to restore the church, to pull down the porch, and
replace the Norman doorway in its original condition.
The church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. A little stream runs
through the graveyard, and rushes down the hill to the porch door, where
it is diverted, and carried off to water the glebe. This, he thought,
was brought through the churchyard for symbolic reasons, to typify
Jordan, near which the Baptist ministered. The descent into the church
is by three steps. “Every church dedicated to John the Baptiser,” he
said in one of his sermons, “is thus arranged. We go down into them, as
those who were about to be baptised of John went down into the water.
The Spirit that appeared when Christ descended into Jordan hovers here,
over that font, over you, over me, and ever will hover here as long as a
stone of Morwenna’s church stands on this green slope, and a priest of
God ministers in it.” The south arcade of the nave is much posterior to
that on the north side. One of the capitals bears the inscription:—
THIS WAS MADE ANNO MVCLX4 (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 Morwenstow, the clerk said to him: “Please, your honor, 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.[17]
Mr. Hawker collected every fragment, and put the pieces together with
bits of modern and poor carved wood, and cast-iron tracery, and
constructed therewith a not ineffective rood-screen.
Outside the screen is an early incised cross in the floor, turned with
feet to the west, marking the grave of a priest. “The flock lie with
their feet to the east, looking for the rising of the day-star. But the
pastor always rests with his head to the east, and feet westward, that
at the resurrection day, when all rise, he may be facing those for whom
he must give an account to the Maker and Judge of all, and may say with
the prophet: Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me.”
The chancel was originally lighted by lancets, which have, however, been
blocked up and plastered over. The floor he kept strewn with
southernwood and thyme, “for angels to smell to.”
The east wall was falling, and in 1849 was rebuilt, and a stained window
by Warrington inserted, given by the late Lord Clinton. It represents
St. Morwenna teaching Editha, daughter of Ethelwolf,[18] between St.
Peter and St. Paul. The window is very poor and coarse in drawing and in
colour. The ancient piscina in the wall is of early English date.
Mr. Hawker discovered under the pavement in the church, when reseating
it, the base of a small pillar, Norman in style, with a hole in it for a
rivet which attached to it the slender column it supported. This he
supposed was a piscina drain, and accordingly set it up in the recess
beside his altar.
Mr. Hawker used an old stable, very decayed, on the north side of the
chancel, as his vestry, and descended by a stair from it to the church.
Floor and roof and stair are now in the last stage of decay.
His altar was of wood, and low. He had on it a clumsy wooden cross,
without figure, vases with bouquets of flowers, and two Cornish
serpentine candlesticks.
There was an embroidered frontal on his altar, given him in 1843, and
used for all seasons alike. Considering the veneration in which Mr.
Hawker held holy things and places, a little more tidiness might have
been expected; but his altar was never very clean, the top having strewn
over it the burnt ends of matches with which he had lighted his candles.
It had also on it a large magnifying glass, like those often on
drawing-room tables, to assist in the examination of photographs. For a
long time Mr. Hawker used to say matins, litany and communion service
standing at his altar; but in later years his curates introduced a
reading-desk within the chancel near the screen. A deal kitchen-table
likewise served for the furnishing of the chancel. On this he would put
his mufflers and devotional books.
The untidy condition of the church affected one of his curates, a man of
a somewhat domineering character, to such an extent that one day he
swept up all the rubbish he could find in the church, old decorations of
the previous Christmas, decayed southernwood and roses of the foregoing
midsummer festivity, pages of old Bibles, prayer-books and manuscript
scraps of poetry, match-ends, candle-ends, etc.; and, having filled a
barrow with all these sundries, he wheeled it down to the vicarage door,
rang the bell, and asked for Mr. Hawker. The vicar came into the porch.
“This is the rubbish I have found in your church.”
“Not all,” said Mr. Hawker. “Complete the pile by seating yourself on
the top, and I will see to the whole being shot speedily.”
In the chancel is a vine, carved in wood, which creeps thence all along
the church—an emblem, according to him, of the Christian life.
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. 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 1601.
John Manning of Stanbury, in Morwenstow, lived in the sixteenth century.
He married Christiana Kempthorne. About six weeks after their marriage
the husband was gored by a bull in a field between Tonacombe and
Stanbury. His young bride died of grief within the year, and was buried
in this altar tomb beside him.
The bed of this ill-fated pair, with their names carved on the
head-board, was found by Mr. Hawker in one of the farms in the parish.
He was very anxious to get possession of it. He begged it, and when
refused offered money, but to no avail: the farmer would not part with
it. After trying persuasion, entreaty, and offering large sums in vain,
he had recourse to another expedient.
The vicar said to the farmer: “Does it ever strike you, S——, when lying
in that bed, as you do of a night, how many corpses have preceded you?
There was first of all poor John Manning, all dead and bloody, in 1601,
his side ripped up by a bull’s horns, just where you lie so snug of a
night. Then there was his bride, Christiana, lying there, where your
wife sleeps, sobbing away her life, dying of a broken heart. Just you
think, John, when you lie there, of that poor lone woman, how her tears
dribbled all night long over the pillow on which your wife’s head rests.
And one morning, when they came to look at her, 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! Think of it, John, of
a night, and tell your wife to do the same. I dare say the dead flesh
has struck a chill into the bed, that the feel of it makes you creep all
over at times at dead of night. Doesn’t it, John? Two hundred and fifty
years ago! That is about five generations—five men washed and laid out,
their chins tied up on your pillow, John, and their dead eyes looking up
at your ceiling; and five wives dead and laid out there too, and
measured for their coffins, just where your wife sleeps so warm. And
then, John, consider, it’s most likely some of these farmers were
married again, so we may say there were at least six or seven female
corpses, let alone dead babies, in that bed. Why, John, there have been
at least fourteen corpses in that bed, including John Manning bleeding
to death, and Christiana weeping her life away. Think of that of a
night. You will find it conducive to good.”
“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 Morwenstow:—
It was on a solemn occasion that we first saw Morwenstow. The sea
was still surly and troubled, with wild lights breaking over it, and
torn clouds driving through the sky. Up from the shore, along a
narrow path between jagged rocks and steep banks tufted with thrift,
came the vicar, wearing cassock and surplice, and conducting a sad
procession, which bore along with it the bodies of two seamen flung
up the same morning on the sands. The office used by Mr. Hawker at
such times had been arranged by himself—not without reference to
certain peculiarities, which, as he conceived, were features of the
primitive Cornish Church, the same which had had its bishops and its
traditions long before the conference of Augustine with its leaders
under the great oak by the Severn. Indeed, at one time he carried
his adhesion to these Cornish traditions to some unusual lengths.
There was, we remember, a peculiar yellow vestment, in which he
appeared much like a Lama of Thibet, which he wore in his house and
about his parish, and which he insisted was an exact copy of a
priestly robe worn by St. Padarn and St. Teilo. We have seen him in
this attire proceeding through the lanes on the back of a
well-groomed mule—the only fitting beast, as he remarked, for a
Churchman.
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 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 sheltering-place of
his flock.
Whilst he was building it Mr. Daniel King came over to see him, and was
shown the house in course of erection. Mr. Daniel King and Mr. Hawker
were not very cordial friends.
“Ha!” said Mr. King, “you know the proverb—‘Fools build houses for wise
men to live in.’”
“Yes,” answered the vicar promptly; “and I know another—‘Wise men make
proverbs, and fools quote them.’”
He had the chimneys of the vicarage built to resemble the towers of
churches with which he had had to do: one was like Tamerton, another
like Magdalen Hall, a third resembled Wellcombe, a fourth Morwenstow.
When Archdeacon, afterwards Bishop, Wilberforce came into the
neighbourhood to advocate the cause of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel, he met Mr. Hawker.
“Look here,” said Archdeacon Wilberforce, “I have to speak at the
meeting at Stratton to-night, and I am told that there is a certain Mr.
Knight[*] 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 Mr. Hawker in a whisper, “the archdeacon has left his
watch behind, and mine is also at home; will you lend yours for timing
the speeches?”
With some hesitation Mr. Knight pulled his gold repeater, with bunch of
seals attached, from his fob, and gave it to the vicar of Morwenstow.
Presently Mr. Knight was on his legs to make a speech. Now, the old
gentleman was accustomed, when addressing a public audience, to swing
his bunch of seals round and round in his left hand. Directly he began
his oration, his hand went instinctively to his fob in quest of the
bunch: it was not there. He stammered, and felt again, floundered in his
speech, and, after a few feeble efforts to recover himself, and find his
bunch of seals, sat down, red and melting and angry.
Mr. Hawker had a pair of stags which he called Robin Hood and Maid
Marian, given to him by the late Sir Thomas Acland, from his park at
Killerton. These he kept in the long open combe in front of the house,
through which a stream dashes onwards to the sea. One day the same Mr.
Knight proceeded too curiously to approach Robin Hood, when the deer ran
at him and butted him down. The clergyman shrieked with fear, and the
stag would have struck him with his antlers had not the vicar rushed to
the rescue. Being an immensely strong man, he caught Robin by the horns,
and drew his head back, and held him fast whilst the frightened man
crawled away.
“I was myself in some difficulty,” said Mr. Hawker, when telling the
story. “The stag would have turned on me when I let go, and I did not
quite see my way to escape; but that wretched man did nothing but yell
for his wig and hat, which had come off and were under the deer’s feet;
as if my life were of no account beside his foxy old wig and battered
beaver.”
Dr. Phillpotts, the late Bishop of Exeter, not long after this occurred,
came to Morwenstow to visit Mr. Hawker. Whilst being shown the landscape
from the garden, the bishop’s eye rested on Robin Hood.
“Why! that stag which butted and tossed Mr. Knight is still suffered to
live! It might have killed him.”
“No great loss, my lord,” said Mr. Hawker. “He is very Low Church.”
Early next morning loud cries for assistance penetrated the vicar’s
bedroom. Looking from his window, he beheld the bishop struggling with
Robin Hood, who, like his fellow of Sherwood, seems to have had little
respect for episcopal dignity. Robin had taken a fancy to the bishop’s
apron, and, gently approaching, had secured one corner in his mouth.
There is a story of a Scottish curate, who, when Jenny Geddes seized him
by his “prelatical” gown as he was passing into the pulpit, quietly
loosed the strings, and allowed Jenny and the gown to fall backward
together. There was no such luck for the bishop. He sought in vain to
unfasten the apron, which descended farther and farther into Robin’s
throat, until the vicar, coming to the rescue, restored the apron to
daylight, and sent the “masterful thief” about his business.
Mr. Hawker accompanied the late Bishop of Exeter on his first visit to
Tintagel, and delighted in telling how the scene, then far more out of
the world than it can now be considered, impressed the powerful mind of
Dr. Phillpotts. He stood alone for some time on the extreme edge of the
castle cliff, while the sun went down before him in the tumbling,
foaming Atlantic a blaze of splendour, flaking the rocks and ruined
walls with orange and carmine; and as he turned away he muttered the
line from Zanga:—
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 forming a cascade
into the sea.
“Falling like a broken purpose,” he observed.
“You are quoting my lines,” said the Poet Laureate.
“And thus it was,” as Mr. Hawker said when relating the incident, “that
I learned whom I was entertaining.” He flattered himself that it was he
who had introduced the Arthurian cycle of legends to Tennyson’s notice.
Charles Kingsley also owed to Mr. Hawker his first introduction to
scenery which he afterwards rendered famous. Stowe and Chapel, places
which figured so largely in _Westward Ho!_ were explored by them
together; and the vicar of Morwenstow was struck, as every one must have
been struck who accompanied Mr. Kingsley under similar circumstances, by
the wonderful insight and skill which seized at once on the most
characteristic features of the scene, and found at the instant the
fitting words in which to describe them.
Mr. Hawker, for his own part, not only did this for his own corner of
Cornwall, but threw into his prose and his poetry the peculiar feeling
of the district, the subtle aroma which, in less skilful hands, is apt
to vanish altogether.
His ballads found their way into numerous publications without his name
being appended to them, and sometimes were fathered on other writers. In
a letter to T. Carnsew, Esq., dated 2nd January, 1858, he says as much.
MY DEAR SIR,—A happy New Year to yours and you, and many of them! as
we say in the West. The kind interest you have taken in young
Blight’s book[19] induces me to send you the royal reply to my
letter. Through Col. Phipps to the Queen I sent a simple statement
of the case, and asked leave for the youth to be allowed to dedicate
his forthcoming book to the Duke of Cornwall. I did not, between
ourselves, expect to succeed, because no such thing has hitherto
been permitted, and also because I was utterly unknown, thank God,
at Court. But it has been always my fate to build other people’s
houses. For others I usually succeed; for myself, always fail. Let
me tell you one strange thing. Every year of my life for full ten
years I have had to write to some publisher, editor or author, to
claim the paternity of a legend or a ballad or a page of prose,
which others have been attempting to foist on the public as their
own. Last year I had to rescue a legendary ballad—“The Sisters of
Glennecten”—from the claims of a Mr. H. of Exeter College.[20]
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:[21] “The rugged heights that line the
seashore in the neighbourhood of Tintagel Castle and Church are crested
with towers. Among these, that of Bottreaux Castle, or, as it is now
written, Boscastle, is without bells. The silence of this wild and
lonely churchyard on festive or solemn occasions is not a little
striking. On inquiring as to the cause, the legend related in the text
was told me, as a matter of implicit belief in those parts.”
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!”
Rang out Tintagel chime.
“Youth, manhood, old age, past,
Come to thy God at last!”
The pilot heard his native bells
Hang on the breeze in fitful swells.
“Thank God!” with reverent brow he cried:
“We make the shore with evening’s tide.”
“Come to thy God in time!”
It was his marriage-chime.
Youth, manhood, old age, past,
His bell must ring at last.
Thank God, thou whining knave, on land!
But thank at sea, the steersman’s hand,
The captain’s voice above the gale,
Thank the good ship and ready sail.
“Come to thy God in time!”
Sad grew the boding chime,
“Come to thy God at last!”
Boomed heavy on the blast.
Up rose that sea, as if it heard
The mighty Master’s signal word.
What thrills the captain’s whitening lip?
The death-groans of his sinking ship!
“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, within twenty years, an old seafaring man whom
we will call Daddy Tregellas—his real name has escaped me. A widow in
the village died, leaving a fair young daughter of eighteen, very
delicate and consumptive, without a home or relation. Daddy Tregellas
had known the widow and felt great pity for the orphan, but how to help
her he did not see. After much turning the matter over in his mind he
thought the only way in which he could make her a home and provide her
with comforts without giving the gossips occasion to talk, was by
marrying her. And married accordingly they were. The Boscastle people to
this day tell of the tenderness of the old man for his young, delicate
wife; it was that of a father for a daughter,—how he watched the
carnation spots on her cheek with intense anxiety and listened with
anguish to her cough; how he walked out with her on the cliffs, wrapping
shawls round her; and sat in church with his eyes fixed on her whilst
she sang, listened or prayed. The beautiful girl was his idol, his pet.
She languished in spite of all his care. He nursed her through her
illness like a mother, with his rough, brown hand as gentle as that of a
woman. She died propped up in bed, with her chestnut hair flowing over
his blue sailor’s jersey, as he held her head on his breast.
When he had laid his pet in Forrabury churchyard the light of his life
was extinguished. The old man wandered about the cliffs all day, in
sunshine and in storm, growing more hollow-cheeked and dull-eyed, his
thin hair lank, his back bowed, speaking to no one and breaking slowly
but surely.
But Mr. Avery, the shipbuilder, about this time laid the keel of a
little vessel, and she was reared in Boscastle haven. The new ship
interested the old man, and when the figure-head was set up he fancied
he traced in it a likeness to his dead wife.
“It is—it is the Pet,” faltered the old man.
The owner heard the exclamation and said: “So shall it be. She shall be
called _The Pet_.”
And now the old love, which had wound itself round the wife, began to
attach itself to the little vessel. Every day the old man was on the
quay watching the growth of _The Pet_; he could not bear her out of his
sight. 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 on the summit of a huge
green billow, now deep in its trough, till she was lost to sight in the
rain and spondrift.
That was the last seen of _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.
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