"Thus said the rushing raven
Unto his hungry mate:
'Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven;
There be corpses six or eight.
Cawk, cawk! the crew and skipper
Are wallowing in the sea;
So there's a savoury supper
For my old dame and me.'

· · · · · · · · · ·

'Cawk, cawk!' then said the raven;
'I am fourscore years and ten;
Yet never in Bude Haven
Did I croak for rescued men.—
They will save the captain's girdle,
And shirt, if shirt there be;
But leave his blood to curdle
For my old dame and me.'"

The graveyards, the fields, the farmyards, will bear out this grim character; there are traces of shipwreck everywhere—memorials of drowned seamen in the burial-ground, figure-heads of shattered vessels placed here and there, beams and spars applied to unintended agricultural uses. One such figure-head is that of the Bencoolen, in the churchyard, reminding us of a vessel wrecked in 1862, when only six were saved from its crew of thirty-five. The Bencoolen was trading from Liverpool to Bombay. We may take Hawker's description of the disaster, recollecting, however, that he wrote in great excitement, and that he was a little unjust to the men of Bude. The wreck took place towards the end of October, after a hurricane that "lasted seven days and nights. On Tuesday at two o'clock afternoon a hull was seen off Bude wallowing in the billows. All rushed to the shore. At three she struck on the sand close to the breakwater—not 300 yards from the rocks. Manby's apparatus was brought down—a rocket fired and a rope carried over to the ship. The mate sprang to clutch it—missed—and fell into the sea, to be seen no more alive. 'Another rope!' was the cry. But from the mismanagement of those in charge there was no other there. They then saw the poor fellows constructing a raft and launching it. A call for the lifeboat, one of large cost, provided with all good gear, kept close by. She was run down to the water. A shout for men—none—a few of the Hovillers, pilotmen, got on board, but refused to put off—all Bude lining the cliffs and shore—Well, well—to abbreviate a horror, the raft was tossed over. About six were washed ashore with life in them, four corpses, and the rest were carried off to sea dead—26 corpses are somewhere in our water, and my men are watching for their coming on shore. The County gives 5s. for finding each corpse, and I give 5s. more. Therefore they are generally found and brought here to the vicarage, where the inquest and the attendant events nearly kill me.... Hordes of people picking up—salvors with carts and horses—and lookers on. It reminded me of old Holingshed's definition, 'a place called Bedes Haven (Bede, a grave).' When the masts went over the captain, married a fortnight before, rushed down into his cabin, drank a bottle of brandy, and was seen no more. The country rings with cries of shame on the dastards of Bude." A calmer eyewitness quite absolves the Bude men from all blame—to render more help had been impossible. The vessel was being steered skilfully to take the haven, but she was too large for its mouth. But, unjust or not, we must love Parson Hawker. He tells of his procedure when a corpse was reported: "I go out into the moonlight bareheaded, and when I come near I greet the nameless dead with the sentences 'I am the Resurrection and the Life,' &c. They lay down their burthen at my feet—I look upon the dead—tall—stout—well-grown—boots on, elastic, and socks—girded with a rope round the waist. I give him in charge to the sexton and his wife to cleanse, to arrange, to clothe the dead. I order a strong coffin, and the corpse is locked in for the night. I write a letter to the coroner and deliver it for transit to the police. And here the misery begins." To every corpse discovered Hawker gave burial in consecrated ground; it was not many years since the law had forbidden this. The few graphic words quoted give us an idea of his days spent on this lonely, pitiless coast—days which he varied by acts of beneficence to his parishioners, and by the writing of much beautiful poetry. Close to the mouth of this perilous haven is the low breakwater, built to connect an outlying mass of rock that was formerly insular with every tide. Carew (1602) speaks of this rock; he says: "We meete with Bude, an open sandie bay, in whose mouth riseth a little hill, by euerie sea-floud made an Iland, and thereon a decayed chapell: it spareth roade only to such small shipping as bring their tide with them, and leaveth them drie, when the ebb hath carried away the salt water." He tells how Arundel of Trerice had a house here named Efford, now the Bude vicarage; and how this gentleman "builded a salt-water mill athwart this bay, whose causey serveth, as a verie convenient bridge, to save the way-farers former trouble, let and daunger." The present church stands near, built by Sir Thomas Acland in 1835. The chapel on the islet, decayed even in Carew's time, was dedicated to St. Michael, its dedication being transferred to the present church; only a few faint traces of the old building can be seen. It was this same Sir Thomas Ackland who constructed the bathing-pool at the end of the breakwater, where it forms a very pleasant little swimming-bath. But in time of storm, rock and pool and breakwater are a mass of snowy, quivering foam; even in less tempestuous times it is fine to see the waves rush seething up the sides of the substantial little breakwater, with suggestiveness of what they can do in wilder hours.

It must be confessed that this corner by the haven is the most interesting portion of Bude, which some visitors have condemned as an unattractive place. Certainly the growth of lodging-houses has not added to its charm, as these houses have all the tameness, though doubtless also the convenience, of modern street-architecture. It is by the haven and on the banks of the now useless canal that there is anything of an old-world atmosphere. As compared with places like Polperro or Boscastle, Bude has a touch of the commonplace, but its coast is fine, and it is an excellent centre for a district of supreme attraction. Readers who care to see how it figures in modern fiction should turn to the Seaboard Parish of the late George Macdonald, in which Bude is the Kilkhaven of the story. Even here the novelist had to borrow another church for his setting; the present Bude Church is by no means that of the romance. The town is now reaching from the canal banks to the breezy Summerleaze Downs, and beyond; and of course the golfer is here in all his glory. But if we go a little more than a mile inland we find all that may be lacking in Bude at Stratton, which may or may not be named after an old "street" that passed this way from Devonshire. That street was almost certainly not Roman, even if the Romans used it. There is a little stream here called the Strat, which does not help us, for the stream may have been called after the town. Stratton shares with Stowe in the glorious memories of Sir Beville Grenville, his wife Grace, and his servant Anthony Payne; but Bideford has also its claim to long association with the Grenvilles—it was from Bideford that Sir Richard sailed the Revenge. Stowe, in the parish of Kilkhampton, a few miles north of Bude, is now a farm, showing very few traces of the Grenville manor-house, which was one of the finest and most extensive in the West. There were two houses, an earlier and a later, but both are now things of the past. At Stratton, however, there is still the Tree Inn, which seems to have been the business residence of Sir Beville, whither he came to settle matters with his tenants and followers; and it was here that his servant, Anthony Payne, was born. Payne, who stood seven foot four in his stockings, was devoted and loyal to his heart's core; it was he who, when Sir Beville fell fighting for King Charles at Lansdown, led the knight's son up the hill at the head of the gallant, irresistible Cornishmen. These Cornishmen had already proved their powers much nearer to Stratton. The battlefield known as Stamford Hill is close by; it was here that Sir Beville and Hopton defeated the Parliamentary forces under the Earl of Stamford and Chudleigh. The fight took place in 1643, and was one of those Royalist victories in the West that for a time made the cause of the King look very hopeful. The Cornish troops were outnumbered almost by two to one; they were tired and hungry, and they had the worst of the ground, for the Roundheads had entrenched themselves; yet they stormed the hill, routed the Parliament men, and took 1,700 prisoners. An old gun still lies there to mark the spot, and above is the inscription: "In this place an army of ye Rebels under ye command of ye Earl of Stamford received a signal over-throw by ye valour of Sir Bevill Grenville and ye Cornish Army." If there be ever glory attaching to battlefields, it may be found here. While the battle was raging Grace Grenville, the wife of Sir Beville, was waiting in anguish of heart at Stowe, only to be pacified when her husband himself came home at night to tell her of the issue. Yet scarce two months had flown when the sorrowful Payne wrote telling his beloved mistress the sore tidings of Lansdown, where the Cornishmen followed their slain master's son up the hill with tears in their eyes. "They did say they would kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Beville's beard. But I bade them remember their good master's word when he wiped his sword after Stamford fight; how he said, when their cry was 'stab and slay,' 'Halt, men; God will avenge.' I am coming down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, how shall I ever brook your weeping face?"

Never was a sweeter communionship of husband and wife than that between Sir Beville and Lady Grace, thus brought to an earthly end; it gives a lovely touch of domestic affection to annals that are otherwise stern and bloody enough, with all their glory. There are some charming letters preserved, 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 deeds, not only of beautiful words.

CHAPTER XVIII

MORWENSTOW

There is a fine stretch of sands protecting the Bude shores, but the background of these sands is cliff. It was this sand that made one of the chief uses of the canal from Bude to Holsworthy, now superseded by the railway; containing a large proportion of lime, it is valuable for agricultural purposes. The sands have a further use now as a playground for visitors; very few watering-places become really popular without such a beach for the children and the bathers. But the true coast is, of course, the background of cliff, and this continues grandly rugged and broken to the Devon borders, and beyond. Little more than a mile north of Bude is Poughill, pronounced Puffill. The church, dedicated to St. Olaf, is one of the few Teutonic foundations in Cornwall; but, indeed, this northern corner of the neighbouring counties, with its "weeks" and "hams" and "worthies," must have been largely held by settlements of Saxons. The value of place-names in such matters is very great, though it must never be pressed too far. Poughill Church, with a good Perpendicular tower, is chiefly notable for its frescoes, somewhat glaringly restored; they resemble those of St. Breage, in the Helston district. Both figures represent St. Christopher bearing his sacred burden across the tide, and the details are in an advanced stage of symbolism. Far more pleasing, artistically, are the beautiful bench-ends of the early sixteenth century, with their various emblems of the Crucifixion, their armorial insignia, their symbols and initials. This church is peculiarly attractive, and its situation is delightful. From thence the road runs to Kilkhampton, whither recollections of the Grenvilles have already carried us. We are now getting into the heart of the Hawker district, but other associations are so numerous here that it seems impossible to deal with them all in anything like an adequate manner. The Perpendicular church of Kilkhampton chiefly dates from the Elizabethan days when one of the Grenvilles was rector here; but it embodies the beautiful Norman doorway from the church supposed to have been built in the eleventh century by another Grenville. Some other Norman traces are preserved—Rector Grenville was a judicious restorer. Of his date are the oak bench-ends, which are as good as Poughill's, and there is an elaborate screen. The monument of Sir Beville Grenville, erected long after his death by his grandson, is perhaps not quite what it ought to be—it is too dismal and conventional. It is very much in the spirit of the Calvinistic clergyman, James Hervey, who, when curate at Bideford, was so much impressed by Kilkhampton Church that it prompted his once famous Meditations among the Tombs. The work and others of its author's, such as Theron and Aspasio, may still be met with occasionally on old-fashioned bookshelves, or on the second-hand stalls; and they forcibly remind us of the style of second-rate reflection which, in a different dress, is still dear to the average sober-minded individual. But Hervey is not at all bad, of his sort, and our great-grandfathers thought him profound. Probably, however, he was dearer to their wives; it is chiefly women who support this kind of moralising. To Hervey Kilkhampton Church was "an ancient Pile, reared by Hands that ages ago moulded into Dust—the Body spacious, the Structure lofty, the whole magnificently plain." He was at Bideford in 1740. Much more lively in its nature was the connection with this parish of the notorious Cruel Coppinger, smuggler, wrecker, and desperado.