Part 15

“So I did, sir, sure enough. My text on such subjects was, ‘_Ask not, and you shall never receive_.’ First of all, I had the vicarage of Percombe, up towards the moors. This came from a private friend. Next, the Duchy gave me the rectory of South Wingley. I had trouble enough to get it. I went up to London, and besieged the Council two or three times a day. People said they gave me the living to get rid of me from town. But it wasn’t so. Next I had Trelegh from the second Mrs. Vivian’s uncle. Yes, yes, preferment enough for one man. By-the-by, did you ever hear how near I was once to the lawn-sleeves and the bench? That was a close shave! I was staying in Bath, at the York House, and there I always dined in the coffee-room. Well, one day a gentleman came in and ordered dinner in the next box to mine--a sole and a chop. I observed a bottle of Madeira wine; and from his nicety and parlour ways, I judged him to be some big-wig, and very rich. I saw he looked about for a news _Gazette_, so I offered him mine, and exchanged a few words by way of getting known to him. He offered me a glass of wine, and of course I took it, and sat down to converse. We grew very friendly, and by-and-by it turned out that his name was Vivian, and spelt exactly like mine. It was growing late, and he took leave, but, to my surprise, invited me to dine with him the next day at Lansdowne Crescent. I was only too glad to go. It was a noble house, with a troop of servants and superb furniture, and, what was most to the purpose, a glorious feed. After dinner, at dessert-time, while we were talking over our wine, I saw, over the mantelpiece, a fine picture of Perceval, the Prime Minister at that time.[154] So I ventured to ask, ‘Is Mr. Perceval, sir, a relative of your family?’ ‘No, sir, no,’ he said. ‘I have his picture because I like his politics, and respect him as a Minister and as a man. I have been introduced to him, however, and I can claim some personal acquaintance with him. ‘Have you, my friend?’ thought I. ‘Then, take my word for it, I will make use of you as a stepping-stone in life.’ So, when it was nearly time to wish him good night, I said, ‘I have a favour to ask you, sir. I am going to town in a day or two, and I shall be deeply obliged if you will write a letter to Mr. Perceval, merely telling him that the bearer is a friend of yours, a clergyman in quest of some preferment, and that as he is the patron of so many good things in the Church, you will be much obliged to him if he will bestow something valuable on your friend.’ He looked rather glum at this, and twirled his fingers a bit, and at length said, ‘Why, no, Mr. Vivian, I can’t go so far as that. Consider, I have known you only a few hours, and have never heard you officiate--although, no doubt, you are well qualified to hold preferment in the Church. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I have a friend, the rector of the parish where Mr. Perceval lives, and I know he always attends his church. I will give you a letter to him, and he may suggest some opportunity of promoting your plan.’ Of course I jumped at this, took my letter, and was off by the mail the very next day. The first man I called on was, of course, the clergyman. It was on a Saturday, and by good luck he had been taken ill. I was shown in where he lay on a sofa, looking quite ghastly. ‘Have you got a sermon with you, Mr. Vivian?’ said he; ‘anything will do.’ I always took with me, wherever I went, some half-dozen, and I said so. ‘Because, as you see, I cannot go to church to-morrow, and a friend who was to have taken my duty has disappointed me. I shall be indeed thankful if you will undertake the work.’ This was the very thing; and accordingly I was in the vestry-hall the next morning, an hour before time, rigged out in full canonicals, hired for the day--silk and sarcenet--and my hair well frizzed, as you may suppose. Just before service I said to the clerk, ‘I am told that Mr. Perceval attends your church; can you point out to me his pew?’ ‘That I can, sir,’ said he, ‘in a moment. There it is in full front of the desk and pulpit, the third pew down, with the brass rods and silk curtains.’ Well, the service began; but the said pew was empty till the end of the Belief, when, lo and behold! in came the beadle, marching with great pomp, and after him Mr. Perceval and some friends. You may guess after that what eyes and ears I had for the rest of the congregation. There was the Prime Minister; I see him now, in his purple coat and cuffs, silk waistcoat--fine as Sisera’s--and with a wig that looked like wisdom itself. He was very attentive. I watched him, and saw how careful he was to keep time with all the service. At length came the last psalm, and up I went. The pulpit fitted me as if it had been made for me; and the cushion, I remember, was all velvet and gold. My text was, ‘Where is the wise man? where is the scribe? where is the disputer?’ etc. I saw that Mr. Perceval never took his eyes off my face all through the discourse. It was one of my very best sermons. I saw that he was delighted with it; and when I came to the end, I observed that he turned round and looked up at me, and whispered something to a gentleman who was with him, and then they both looked up at me and smiled. Said I to myself, ‘Humphrey, the golden ball is cast; thy fortune is made, as sure as rates and taxes. Look out for a bishopric, and that soon!’ I never was so happy in all my life. I dined that night at the Mitre in Fleet Street, on a rump-steak; and I often caught myself smiling and slapping my thigh and muttering. I saw the waiter stare when I said to myself, but in an audible voice, ‘Done for a guinea! Make way for my lord!’ Next day I went into the City to meet ----, who was in town on business. After he had settled what he came to do, he walked some way home with me. Well, sir, when we came to the Strand there was a dreadful uproar, people talking very low and seriously. At length a gentleman said to my companion, ‘Have you heard the dreadful news? A rascal called Bellingham[155] has shot Mr. Perceval dead in the lobby of the House of Commons!’ It was like a deathblow to me. Poor fellow! It cut me through like a knife. I was indeed a crushed man, clean dissolved, as the psalm says. And from that very hour I have been convinced and persuaded--ay, I do believe it like the Creed--that the very same ball that shot poor Perceval cut away a mitre from my head as clean as a whistle. Yes, I have never swerved from that belief all these years; and up to this day, when I say my prayers, as I do after I am in bed, I always begin with the Confirmation from ‘Defend, etc., this Thy servant.’”

FOOTNOTES:

[151] Compare Browning’s lines--

“Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary’s saying serves for me-- (When fortune’s malice Lost her--Calais)-- Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, ‘Italy.’”

[152] The same conceit, humorously applied, occurs in Calverley--

“And the lean and hungry raven, As he picks my bones, will start To observe ‘M.N.’ engraven Neatly on my blighted heart.”

[153] See pp. 196, 202.

[154] Perceval was Prime Minister from 1809 to 1812, in the time of the Regency and the Peninsular War.

[155] The “Dictionary of National Biography” gives the following account of this event: “There was a certain bankrupt named John Bellingham, a man of disordered brain, who had a grievance against the Government originating in the refusal of the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg to interfere with the regular process of Russian law under which he had been arrested. He had applied to Perceval for redress, and the inevitable refusal inflamed his crazy resentment. On Monday, May 11 (1812), the House of Commons went into Committee on the orders in Council, and began to examine witnesses. Brougham complained of Perceval’s absence, and he was sent for. As he passed through the lobby to reach the house, Bellingham placed a pistol to his breast and fired. Perceval was dead before a doctor could be found.... Bellingham was tried at the Old Bailey on May 15, and the plea of insanity being set aside by the court, he was hanged on May 18.”

OLD TREVARTEN:

A TALE OF THE PIXIES[156]

“Mount and follow! stout and cripple! Horse and hattock, ‘but and ben;’[157] Horses for the Pixie people, Hattock for the Brownie men.”

R. S. HAWKER.

People may talk if they please about the march of agriculture, and they may boast that by the discoveries of science a man will soon be able to carry into a large field enough manure for its soil in his coat-pocket, but there has been the ready answer, “Yes, and bring away the produce in his fob.” I am half inclined to agree with an old parishioner of mine, who used often to say, “It was an unlucky time for England when the phrase ‘gentleman farmer’ came up, and folks began to try their new-fangled plans--such as clover for horses and turnips for sheep.” “Rents,” he declared, “were never lower than when a tenant would pare and burn,[158] and take their crops out of every field, so as to carry off the land as much as he brought on it”--a theory on which, being a renter himself, he had thriven, and put by money for full fifty years. Equally original, by the way, were the devices cherished by my aged friend for the repair of roads. When Macadam had driven his first turnpike through the West, a public dinner was given in honour of the event; and being presented with a free ticket, and well coaxed into the bargain, Old Trevarten made his appearance as a guest. But it was observed that, amid all the jingling of glasses and cheering of toasts, he sat motionless and mute, if not actually sulky. At length the engineer, somewhat piqued at his silence, said, during a pause, “Why, sir, I am afraid that I have not had the honour of gaining your approval in this undertaking of mine.”

“To tell you the truth, sir,” was the slow and sturdy answer, “I don’t like your road at all, by no means.”

“Well, but what are your reasons, sir, for disliking what most people are pleased with?”

“Why, sir, you have had a brave lot of money out of the country, and there’s nothing as I see to show for it--’tis all gone!”

“Gone, sir, gone! Why, bless me, isn’t there the road--the fine, wide, level road?”

“Well, yes, sartainly; but where’s they matereyals that cost such a sight of taxes? You’ve smashed mun to nort: there’s pilm [dust] in the drought, and there’s mucks [mud] in the rain, but nowt else that I see. Now, when I wor way-warden of Wide Widger, I let the farmers have something to show for their money. Why, sir, ’tis ten year agone come Candlemas that I wor in office for the ways, and I put down stones as big as beehives, and there they be now!”

Access to such a living volume of bygone usages and notions was an advantage not to be despised, and it was long my custom to resort to “mine ancient” for information difficult to be obtained elsewhere. Once “I do remember me” that I encountered him in the middle of a reedy marsh on his farm. He paused, and awaited my approach, leaning on his staff just where the path crossed a bed of the cotton-rush, then in full bloom. I had gathered a handful of the stalks, each with its pod of fine white gossamer threads, like a bunch of snowy silk.

“Ha!” said he, with a kind of half alarm, “you bean’t afeared to pick that there?”

“Afraid? No; why should I be?”

“Why, some people think it’s unlucky to carry off the pisky wool; but perhaps you know from the Scriptures how to keep off any harm.”

I did know better than to reason against such fancies with a Cornish yeoman of threescore and fifteen, and I thought it a good opening for a saw or ancient instance.[159] “Pixies!” was my leading answer; “and who are they?”

“Ancient inhabitants,” was the grave reply--“folks that used to live in the land before us Christians comed here. So, at least, I’ve heerd my mother say. They are a small people.”

“And what about this wool? What use do they make of it.”

“Why, they spin it for clothing, and to keep ’em warm by night. They’d do a power of work for the farmers, and for a very small matter to eat and drink, too; and they would sing, evenings--sing and crowdie like a Christmas choir.”

The solemn tones of his voice, and the grim gravity of visage with which old Trevarten made known these mysteries, attested his own deep belief in their reality and truth. “Had I never seen those rings on the grass upon Hennacleave Hill--circles about a foot wide, of a darker colour than the rest of the turf?” he inquired, well knowing that I had, but rather rejoicing in an opportunity of enlightening me with scientific revelations of his own. “Did I know how they came there, and who made them?”

“No.”

“Well, that was surprising: he thought that the college teached such things, or why did it cost so much money to go there to learn? Howsomever, _he_ would let me know about they rings. The piskies made mun, dancing hand-in-hand by night. They rise about midnight, and they put on their Sunday clothes, and they agree to meet in such or such a spot, and there one will crowdie and the others daunce, and beat out the time with their feet, till they’ve worn the shape of a round-about in the grass, and nort will wear out that ring for evermore!”

Deeply grateful for this information, I ventured to inquire, “And did you ever see any of these pixy people yourself?”

“Why, I can’t say for sartain that I didno seed mun; my mother hath--so I’ve yeerd her tell divers times. No; but I’ve seed their works, such as tying up the manes of the colts in stirrups for riding by night, and terrifying the cows into the clover till they wor jist a bosted with the wet grass. And I’ve been pisky-eyed more than once coming home from the market or fair; and I’ve yeerd mun at their rollicking night-times frayquently, but I can’t say that I ever seed their faytures, so as to know ’em again another time.”

“Well,” said I, as a sort of closing and clenching remark, “all I can say is that I wish I could lay hold of one of these pixies, just to look at--that’s all.”

“Do you?” was his quick rejoinder; “do you really desire it? I daresay I can oblige you one day. It is not a month agone that I’d all but catched one.”

“Indeed!” said I, half bewildered. “How? Where was it?”

“Why, sir, you see the case was this. I’d a bin to Simon Jude fair, and I stayed rather latish settling with the jobber Brown for some sheep, and so it wor past twelve o’clock at night before I come through Stowe wood; and just as I crossed Combe Water, sure enough I yeerd the piskies. I know’d very well where their ring was close by the gate, and so I stopped my horse and got off. Well, on I croped afoot till there was nothing but a gap between me and the pisky ring, and I could hear every word they said. One had got the crowder, and he was working away his elbow to the tune of ‘Green Slieves’ bravely, and the rest wor dauncing and singing and merrymaking like a stage-play. It made me just ’mazed in my head to look at ’em. Well, I thort to myself, if I could but catch one of these chaps to carry home! I’ve yeerd that there’s nothing so lucky in a house as a tame pisky. So I stooped down and I picked up a stone, oh, as big as my two fistes, and I swinged my arm and I scrashed the stone right into the ring. What a screech there was! Such a yell! and one in pertickler I yeerd screaming and hopping with a leg a-brok like a drashel. That one I was pretty sure of. But still, as it was very late, and my wife would be looking for me home, and it was dark also, so I thout I might as well come down and fetch my pisky in the morning by daylight. Well, sure enough, soon as I rose, I took one of these baskets with a cover that the women have invented--a ridicule, they call it--and down I goes to the ring. And do you know, sir, they’d a be so cunning--they’d a had the art for to carry their comrade clear off, and there wasn’t so much as a screed of one left! But, however,” said my venerable friend, seeing that I did not look quite satisfied with the evidence, “however, there the stone was that I drashed in amongst mun!”

Alas! alas! how often in after-days, when I have encountered the theories of men learned in the ’ologies, and pondered the prodigious inferences which they had deduced from a stratum here and a deposit there,--how irresistibly have my thoughts recurred to old Trevarten and his amount of proof, “There the stone was that I drashed in amongst mun”!

FOOTNOTES:

[156] Robert Hunt has a delightful chapter on “The Elfin Creed of Cornwall,” in his “Popular Romances of the West of England.”

[157] Compare “The Doom-Well of St. Madron”--

“‘Now horse and hattock, both but and ben,’ Was the cry at Lauds, with Dundagel men, And forth they pricked upon Routorr side, As goodly a raid as a king could ride.”

[158] A reference to a custom, still followed to some extent in Devon and Cornwall, of paring the turf of grass-fields and burning the sods. It is called “bait-burning,” or “burning bait.”

[159] “Full of wise saws and modern instances.”--_As You Like It._

APPENDICES

BY THE REV. PREBENDARY ROGER GRANVILLE, THE LATE REV. W. WADDON MARTYN AND R. PEARSE CHOPE

APPENDIX A (p. 8)

MORWENSTOW

BY R. PEARSE CHOPE

The “endowment” referred to by Mr. Hawker is a copy of the original document, which was executed on May 20th, 1296, by Bishop Thomas de Bytton. The church was appropriated by his predecessor, Bishop Peter Quivil, to the Hospital of St. John the Baptist at Bridgwater, on November 16th, 1290. Bishop Bytton’s Register having been lost, the “endowment” was copied by William Germyne, Registrar to John Woolton, Bishop from 1579 to 1593-94, on a blank page of the Register of Thomas de Brantyngham, Bishop from 1370 to 1394. The name “Walter Brentingham” is probably due to some confusion between this Thomas de Brantyngham and Bishop Walter de Stapeldon, for there was no Bishop of Exeter having the first name. Germyne’s copy is printed in full in the Register of Bishop Brantyngham, edited by the Rev. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph (Part I. p. 106), and is here reproduced.

“Universis presentes Literas inspecturis Thomas, permissione Divina Exoniensis Episcopus, salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam.--Noverit Universitas vestra quod, cum olim bone memorie Petrus, tunc Exoniensis Episcopus, Ecclesiam de Morewinstowe, cum juribus suis et pertinenciis, Religiosis viris, Magistro et Fratribus Hospitalis Sancti Johannis de Bridgwater, Bathoniensis Diocesis, de consensu Capituli sui appropriasset, et concessisset eisdem in usus proprios imperpetuum possidendam, salva competenti Vicaria, per ipsum et Successores suos taxanda et ordinanda juxta juris exigenciam in eadem; nos, eidem postmodum succedentes in onere et honore, cum res integra adhuc existeret, pensatis ejusdem Ecclesie facultatibus, habita super hoc cognicione debita que requiritur in hac parte, de expresso consensu dictorum Magistri et Fratrum, ipsam Vicariam, quod in subscriptis porcionibus consistat imperpetuum, tenore Presentium ordinamus; videlicet, quod Vicarius qui pro tempore in Ecclesia supradicta fuerit habeat et percipiat, nomine Vicarie, omnes fructus, proventus, et obvenciones totius alterlagii Ecclesie supradicte; sub quo, preter ceteros proventus, decimam feni totius Parochie, simul cum tota decima molendinorum ejusdem Parochie, volumus comprehendi; cum Sanctuario jacente a parte Occidentali curie et croftarum Parsonatus Ecclesie supradicte, sursum a veteri via que ducit usque ad mare et usque ad deorsum ad rivulum in valle, cum duabus croftis subter Ecclesiam a parte Boreali, et cetera terra ibidem usque ad quendam fontem Johannis, quatuor acras terre continente et ultra; cum tota decima garbarum ville de Stanburie et trium villarum de Tunnacombis; volentes et ordinantes quod dicta Religiosi omnes Libros et Ornamenta dicte Ecclesie, si que deficiunt, vel usu seu vetustate consumpta fuerint, que, tamen, ad ipsos parochianos non pertinent, suis sumptibus de novo invenient; alia, vero, si per reparacionem fuerint per tempus non breve duratura, in statum congruum et sufficientem reparent et reficiant hac vice prima; quodque extunc custodia eorundem et reparacio pro tempore successuro, una cum omnibus oneribus ordinariis integraliter, et extraordinariis pro quarta parte dumtaxat, ad Vicarium qui pro tempore fuerit pertineant; residua parte dictorum onerum extraordinariorum, una cum sustentatione, reparatione, et reedificatione Cancelli ipsius Ecclesie dictis Religiosis totaliter incumbente.--In cujus rei testimonium nos, Thomas, Exoniensis Episcopus supradictus, sigillum nostrum, et nos, prefati Magister et Fratres sigillum nostrum commune Presentibus duximus apponendum.--Data apud Chidleghe, xiij^o Calendas Junii [May 20th], Anno Domini Millesimo ducentesimo nonagesimo sexto.

“Hec Taxatio vere est Registrata, “WILLELMUS GERMYNE.”

The Editor points out, in an interesting note, that the certified copy of this, which was used by Mr. Hawker, has “Tidnacombis” instead of “Tunnacombis.” In the Register itself the letter “u” is turned up at the end, the usual contracted form of “un,” but the writing is obscure; and, although experts would read it correctly without hesitation, it might easily, in this case, be mistaken for “id” by others. One of Mr. Hawker’s most beautiful poems is entitled “The Token Stream of Tidna Combe.” It is interesting to note that Stanbury was the birthplace of John Stanbury, Bishop of Hereford, who died 1474. He was confessor to Henry VI., and was nominated the first Provost of Eton College, although he never took up the office.

The following curious tradition relating to the extremely rude font is quoted by Lieut.-Colonel Harding in a paper on Morwenstow Church in the “Transactions of the Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society” (Second Series, vol. i. p. 216). It has been preserved among some valuable MSS. which belong to the Coffin family of Portledge, near Bideford, and were collected by an antiquary of that family about three hundred years ago.

“Moorwinstow, its name is from St. Moorin. The tradition is, that when the parishioners were about to build their church, this saint went down under the cliff and chose a stone for the font which she brought up upon her head. In her way, being weary, she lay down the stone and rested herself, out of which place sprang a well, from thence called St. Moorin’s well. Then she took it up and carried it to the place where now the church standeth. The parishioners had begun their church in another place, and there did convey this stone, but what was built by day was pulled down by night, and the materials carried to this place; whereupon they forbare, and built it in the place they were directed to by a wonder.”

The date on one of the capitals seems to be 1564 instead of 1475. The inscription runs round the capital, each of the twenty letters being on a separate face, thus--

“THIS WAS MADE ANNO MVCLX4”

The next capital has the following inscription, _upside down_--

“THIS IS THE HOVSE OF THE L.”

The supposed piscina, according to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, is merely “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” (“The Vicar of Morwenstow,” ed. 1899, p. 60). It has also been stated that Mr. Hawker obtained the piscina from the ruined chapel at Longfurlong, Hartland, and placed it in his church at Morwenstow (Rev. T. H. Chope, “Hartland Parish,” 1896, p. 17).[160]

FOOTNOTE: