Footprints of Former Men in Far CornwallHawker, Robert Stephen
History
Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall
Hawker, Robert Stephen
Cornwall (England : County) -- History
Another entry on the same leaf: “Florence asked me to-day if I thought
that our souls, after we are dead, would know the stars and other
wise things better than we can now. And I answered her, Yes; and if I
could--that is, if I was allowed to--the first thing I would try should
be to square the circle true, and then, if I could, I would mark it and
work it out somewhere hereabouts on a flat rock, that my son might find
it there, and so make his fortune and be a great man. N.B.--Florence
asked me to write this down.”
On a thick sheet of pasteboard, with a ground-plan of a building on
the other side, he had written: “_January 16, 1756_.--A terrible storm
last night. Thunder and lightning and hail, with a tempest of wind. Saw
several dead sheep on the moor. Shipwrecks, no doubt, at sea. A thought
came into my mind, Why should such harm be allowed to be done? I read
some reasons once in a book that Mr. Cookworthy lent me, called ‘The
Origin of Evil;’ but I could not understand a word of it. My notion is,
that when evil somehow came into the world, God did not destroy it at
once, because He is so almighty that He let it go on, to make manifest
His power and majesty; and so He rules over all things, and turns them
into good at the last. N.B.--The devil is called in the Bible the
Prince of the Powers of the Air: so he may be, but he must obey his
Master. The poor wretch is but a slave after all!”
On the fly-leaves of an old account-book the following strange
statement appears: “_June 23, 1764_.--To-day, at bright noon, as I was
at my work upon the moor, I looked up, and saw all at once a stranger
standing on the turf, just above my block. He was dressed like an old
picture I remember in the windows of St. Neot’s Church, in a long
brown garment, with a girdle; and his head was uncovered and grizzled
with long hair. He spoke to me, and he said, in a low, clear voice,
‘Daniel, that work is hard!’ I wondered that he should know my name,
and I answered, ‘Yes, sir; but I am used to it, and don’t mind it,
for the sake of the faces at home.’ Then he said, sounding his words
like a psalm, ‘Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour until
the evening; when will it be night with Daniel Gumb?’ I began to feel
queer; it seemed to me that there was something awful about the unknown
man. I even shook. Then he said again, ‘Fear nothing. The happiest man
in all the earth is he that wins his daily bread by his daily sweat,
if he will but fear God and do no man wrong.’ I bent down my head like
any one confounded, and I greatly wondered who this strange appearance
could be. He was not like a preacher, for he looked me full in the
face; nor a bit like a parson, for he seemed very meek and kind. I
began to think it was a spirit, only such ones always come by night,
and here was I at noonday, and at work. So I made up my mind to drop
my hammer and step up and ask his name right out. But when I looked
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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