Nov. 17, 1874. _My dear Valentine_,[42].... One part of your letter has troubled our earnest hope. If you would but fulfil your suggestion, and come to Dean Lodge, the advantages to me would be incalculable. You would not, I know, object to help me in the church once a Sunday. I cannot, by any effort, obtain a curate. The work—thrice a day on Sunday—is killing me, and your presence would soothe the dreadful depression into which I am sinking fast. Make any effort, I do entreat you, to come. The cry after your last appearance in church[43] was, that no sermon had been heard in church for a long time equal to yours: not very complimentary to me, but that I don’t mind. Come! anything you want at Dean, that we have, you are most welcome to have from us. Your presence in the parish will be ample compensation. Come, I do entreat you, and gladden us by deciding at once, and telling us so. I shall have hope then of getting over the winter, which now I cannot realise. My great terror is that I have all but lost the power of sleep. I cannot rest in bed quietly above two or three hours. Now, it would be cruel to awaken hope, and crush it again. You shall have horses and carriage, and anything you want. At Christmas he was very ill, and thought that life’s last page was being turned, and that before the daisies reappeared in Morwenstow churchyard he would be resting in his long home. But he got slowly better. On 28th April, 1875, he was still in trouble about a curate, and wrote to Mr. Valentine, begging him to allow him to take Dean Lodge, and make it a cottage for his curate. “Write to me at once,” he said, “to relieve my poor broken mind of one of the _pressures_ which are now dragging it down. Pray write immediately, because my second letter must have apprised you how unable I am in my present shattered state. And mind, I rely on you for standing by me in these, my last trials.” In June Mr. Hawker went for change, with his wife and children, and a lady, the companion of Mrs. Hawker, who was staying with them, to Boscastle, to visit his brother at Penally. Did any prevision of what would take place pass before his mind’s eye ere he left his beloved Morwenstow? Had he any thought that he was taking his last look at the quiet combe, with its furze and heather slopes, the laughing, sparkling, blue sea that lashed the giant cliffs on which St. Morwenna had planted her foot, cross in hand? We cannot tell. It is certain that it had been all along his wish to lay him down to rest in his old church. The grave made for his wife was, by his orders, made double; a space was left on the stone for his name; and he often, at all events before his second marriage, spoke of his desire to be laid there, and made a friend promise, that, should he by accident die away from Morwenstow, he would fetch his body, and lay him there.