reserved, that passed between the two; showing
the beautiful simplicity of their natures and the tone of their home
life. "My dearest," wrote the knight from London, "I am exceedingly
glad to hear from you, but doe desire you not to be so passionat for
my absence. I vow you cannot more desire to have me at home than I
desire to be there." And again: "Charge Postlett and Hooper that they
keepe out the Piggs and all other things out of my new nursery, and
the other orchard too. Let them use any means to keepe them safe, for
my trees will all be spoild if they com in, which I would not for a
world." And the lady, addressing "Sweet Mr. Grenvile," adds in a
postscript to her letter: "If you please to bestowe a plaine black
Gownd of any cheape stufe on me I will thank you, and some black
shoes." She died about four years after her husband fell at Lansdown.
These two lie buried at Kilkhampton, but Payne, the loyal servant, is
somewhere within the noble church of Stratton; there is no monument to
say where. The church is of excellent restored Perpendicular, with
fine pinnacled tower. Within are a Norman font, a Jacobean pulpit, and
the black marble tomb of Sir John Arundel (1561), whose former
manor-house at Efford is now Bude Vicarage; there are brasses of the
knight, his wives and their children. The fourteenth-century effigy of
a knight in the north aisle is supposed to be that of Sir Ranulf de
Blanchminster, who is commemorated in one of Hawker's ballads. It is
fitting to think of the poet-parson in this spot; not only are we now
approaching very near his own parish, but his father was Vicar of
Stratton and lies buried in the church's chancel. Hawker was often
asked to preach here, but he long declined, fearing that the
associations would be too overwhelming for him. This proved to be the
case when at last, in his old age, he preached at the church. Suddenly
breaking in his sermon, he explained with faltering voice, "I stand
amid the dust of those near and dear to me." It is little wonder that
his listeners shared his emotion; and some touch of it may still come
over those to whom the records of Hawker are very dear. The number of
such lovers should have been much increased by the adequate biography
that is now at the service of the public, prepared by the son-in-law
of the poet; and Hawker is pre-eminently one of those whom we learn to
love even more through his memoirs than by his writings. For his life
was a life of noble