He was sitting, crying like a child, one night over his papers, when there shot a spark from the fire among those strewn at his feet. He did not notice it particularly, but went to bed. After he had gone to sleep, his papers were in a flame: the flame communicated itself to a drawer full of MSS., which he had pulled out, and not thrust into its place again; and the house would probably have been burnt down, had not a Methodist minister seen the blaze through the window, as he happened to be on the hill opposite. He gave the alarm, the inmates of the vicarage were aroused, and the fire was arrested. Probably much of his MS. poetry, and jottings of ideas passing through his head, were thus lost. “Oh, dear!” was his sad cry, “if Charlotte had been here this would never have happened.” The vicar had brain fever shortly afterwards, and was in danger; but he gradually recovered. [Illustration: MORWENSTOW PARISH CHURCH.] [Illustration: ANCIENT FONT IN MORWENSTOW CHURCH.] [Illustration: “PARSON HAWKER,” OF MORWENSTOW.] [Illustration: THE CHURCH AND VICARAGE, MORWENSTOW.] A friend tells me that during the time that he was a widower, the condition he was in was most sad. His drawing-room, which used to be his delight, full of old oak furniture, and curiosities from every corner of the world, was undusted and neglected. The servants, no longer controlled by a mistress, probably did not attend properly to the comforts of the master. However, a new interest grew up in his heart. It was fortunate that matters did not remain long in this condition. It was neither well nor wise that the old man should linger on the rest of his days without a “helpmeet for him,” to attend to his comforts, be a companion in his solitude, and a solace in his fits of depression. The Eastern Church is very strong against the second marriage of priests. No man who has had a second wife is admitted by the orthodox communion to holy orders. But Mr. Hawker was about, and very fortunately for his own comfort, in this matter to shake off the trammels of his Orientalism. Previous to the death of his first wife, he had some good stories to tell of men, who, when the first wife was dead, forgot her speedily for a second. One belongs to the Cornish moors, and may therefore be here inserted. A traveller was on his way over the great dorsal moorland that runs the length of Cornwall. He had lost his way. It was a time of autumn equinoctial storm. The day declined, and nothing was to be seen save sweeps of moor, broken only by huge masses of granite; not a church tower broke the horizon, not a dog barked from a distant farm.