He never ate between services. Directly morning prayer was over, he got into his gig; a basket of pipes, all loaded, was handed in, and he drove off to Wellcombe, smoking all the way; and, after having taken duty, he smoked all the way back. Once a month he celebrated the holy communion at Wellcombe; and then, through the kindness of the rector of Kilkhampton, the morning service at Morwenstow was not allowed to fall through.
Mr. Hawker for long acted as postman to Wellcombe. The inhabitants of that remote village did not often get letters; when missives arrived for them, they were left at Morwenstow vicarage, and on the following Sunday a distribution of the post took place in the porch after divine service.
But the parishioners of Wellcombe were no “scholards”; and the vicar was generally required to read their letters to them, and sometimes to write the answers.
On one occasion he was reading a letter to an old woman of Wellcombe, whose son was in Brazil. Part of the letter ran as follows: “I cannot tell you, dear mother, how the muskitties [mosquitoes] torment me. They never leave me alone, but pursue me everywhere.”
“To think of that!” interrupted the old woman. “My Ezekiel must be a handsome lad! But I’m interrupting. Do you go on, please, parson.”
“Indeed, dear mother,” continued the vicar, reading, “I shut my door and window of an evening, to keep them out of my room.”
“Dear life!” exclaimed the old woman, “what will the world come to next!”
“And yet,” continued the vicar, “they do not leave me alone. I believe they come down the chimney to get at me.”
“Well, well, now, parson!” exclaimed the mother, holding up her hands; “to think how forward of them!”
“Of whom?”