A number of people ran out on the rocks and along the beach, and listened awestruck to the singing and disconsolate wailing of the mermaid. Presently she dived off the rock, and disappeared.
Next night crowds of people assembled to look out for the mermaid; and in due time she reappeared, and sent the moon flashing in their faces from her glass. Telescopes were brought to bear on her; but she sang on unmoved, braiding her tresses, and uttering remarkable sounds, unlike the singing of mortal throats which have been practised in do-re-mi.
This went on for several nights; the crowd growing greater, people arriving from Stratton, Kilkhampton, and all the villages round, till Robert Hawker got very hoarse with his nightly singing, and rather tired of sitting so long in the cold. He therefore wound up the performance one night with an unmistakable “God save the King,” then plunged into the waves, and the mermaid never again revisited the “sounding shores of Bude.”
Miss Fanny I’ans was a late riser. Her brother-in-law, to break her of this bad habit, was wont to throw open her window early in the morning, and turn in a troop of setters, whose barking, yelping and frantic efforts to get out of the room again, effectually banished sleep from the eyes of the fair but somewhat aged occupant.
Efford Farm had been sub-let to a farmer, who broke the lease by ploughing up and growing crops on land which it had been stipulated should be kept in grass.
Sir Thomas Acland behaved with great generosity in the matter. He might have reclaimed the farm without making compensation to the ladies; but he allowed them £300 a year as long as they lived, took the farm away, and re-leased it to a more trusty tenant.
Mr. Robert Stephen Hawker obtained the Newdegate in 1827:[[1]] he took his degree of B.A. in 1828, and then went with his wife to Morwenstow, a place for which even then he had contracted a peculiar love, and there read for holy orders.
Welcome, wild rock and lonely shore!
Where round my days dark seas shall roar,
And thy grey fane, Morwenna, stand