“Not in the least: he is impervious to hints.”
“Can he not be prevented from rising to address the meeting?”
“That is impossible: he is irrepressible.”
“Then what is to be done?”
“Leave him to me, and he will not trouble you.”
At the S.P.G. meeting a crowd had gathered to hear the eloquent speaker. Mr. Tom Knight was on the platform, waiting his opportunity to rise.
“Oh, Knight!” said Mr. Hawker in a whisper, “the archdeacon has left his watch behind, and mine is also at home; will you lend yours for timing the speeches?”
With some hesitation Mr. Knight pulled his gold repeater, with bunch of seals attached, from his fob, and gave it to the vicar of Morwenstow.
Presently Mr. Knight was on his legs to make a speech. Now, the old gentleman was accustomed, when addressing a public audience, to swing his bunch of seals round and round in his left hand. Directly he began his oration, his hand went instinctively to his fob in quest of the bunch: it was not there. He stammered, and felt again, floundered in his speech, and, after a few feeble efforts to recover himself, and find his bunch of seals, sat down, red and melting and angry.
Mr. Hawker had a pair of stags which he called Robin Hood and Maid Marian, given to him by the late Sir Thomas Acland, from his park at Killerton. These he kept in the long open combe in front of the house, through which a stream dashes onwards to the sea. One day the same Mr. Knight proceeded too curiously to approach Robin Hood, when the deer ran at him and butted him down. The clergyman shrieked with fear, and the stag would have struck him with his antlers had not the vicar rushed to the rescue. Being an immensely strong man, he caught Robin by the horns, and drew his head back, and held him fast whilst the frightened man crawled away.