In the morning Stanlake appeared in the library, very downcast.
“Go away,” said the vicar in a voice of thunder. “I dismiss you forthwith. Here are your wages. I will not even look at you. Let me never see your face again. You brought me into a pretty predicament last night.”
Two days after he met the man again. In the meantime his wrath had abated, and he began to think that he had acted harshly with his servant. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” ran in his head.
“Stanlake,” said he, “you played me a hateful trick the other night. I hope you are sorry for it.”
“I’se very sorry, your honour, but you gave me the whiskey.”
“You think you won’t do it again?”
“I’se very sure I won’t, if you give me no more.”
“Then, Stanlake, I will overlook it. You may remain in my service.”
Not many weeks after, the vicar sent Stanlake to Boscastle, and, thinking he would be cold, gave him again a bottle of whisky. Of course, once more the man got drunk. This time the vicar did not overlook it; but which of the two was really to blame?
Mr. Robert Stephen Hawker was a man of the most unbounded hospitality. Every one who visited Morwenstow met with a warm welcome: everything his larder and dairy contained was produced in the most lavish profusion. The best that his house could afford was freely given. On one occasion, when about to be visited by a nephew and his wife, he sent all the way to Tavistock, about thirty miles, for a leg and shoulder of Dartmoor mutton. If he saw friends coming along the loop drive which descended to his vicarage, he would run to the door, with a sunny smile of greeting, and both hands extended in welcome, and draw them in to break his bread and partake of his salt. Sometimes his larder was empty, he had fed so many visitors; and he would say sorrowfully: “There is nothing but ham and eggs: I give thee all, I can no more.” And visitors were most numerous in summer. In one of his letters he speaks of having entertained 150 in a summer.