In church he wore a little black cap over his white hair, rendered necessary by the cold and damp of the decaying old church.
At his side he carried a bunch of seals and medals. One of his seals bore the fish surrounded by a serpent biting its tail, and the legend ἰχθύς. Another bore the pentacle, with the name of Jehovah in Hebrew characters in the centre. This was Solomon’s seal. “With this seal,” he said, “I can command the devils.”
His command of the devil was not always successful. He built a barn on the most exposed and elevated point of the glebe; and when a neighbour expostulated with him, and assured him that the wind would speedily wreck it, “No,” he answered: “I have placed the sign of the cross on it, and so the devil cannot touch it.”
A few weeks after, a gale from the south-west tore the roof off.
“The devil,” was his explanation, “was so enraged at seeing the sign of the cross on my barn, that he rent it and wrecked it.”
A man whom he had saved from a wreck, in gratitude sent him afterwards, from the diggings in California, a nugget of gold he had found. This Mr. Hawker had struck into a medal or seal, and wore always at his side with the bunch.
Attached to the button-hole of his coat was invariably a pencil suspended by a piece of string.
He was a well-built man, tall, broad, with a face full of manly beauty, a nobly cut profile, dark, full eyes, and long, snowy hair. His expression was rapidly changing, like the sea as seen from his cliffs; now flashing and rippling with smiles, and anon overcast and sad, sometimes stormy.
Mr. Hawker, some short time after his induction into Morwenstow, adopted an alb and cope which he wore throughout his ministrations at matins, litany and communion service. But he left off wearing the cope about ten or twelve years ago, and the reason he gave for doing so was his disapproval of the extravagances of the Ritualist party. Till the year before he died he had no personal knowledge of their proceedings, and related as facts the most ridiculous and preposterous fables concerning them which had been told him, and which he sincerely believed in.
The ceremonial he employed in his church was entirely of his own devising. When he baptised a child he raised it in his arms, carried it up the church in his waving purple cope, thundering forth, with his rich, powerful voice, the words: “We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock,” etc. His administration of this sacrament was most solemn and impressive; and I know of parents who have gone to Morwenstow for the purpose of having their children baptised by him.