Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/228

 CORNWALL This parish has long been notorious for its shipwrecks, and Hawker made it his duty to give Christian burial to every body cast upon the shore. It is a wild coast, and its people were equally wild at the time when he became their vicar (1834). Smuggling was boldly practised whenever possible, and something very much like wrecking was not unknown. Eccentric as he was. Hawker lived a life of noble-hearted endeavour among these rude peasants and fishermen ; he stood their friend against all oppression ; he would give the very coat off his back to clothe, and the dinner from his cupboard to feed them. There is a mystery connected with his last days, and his admittance to the Church of Rome ; we are compelled to believe that the hasty zeal of his Catholic wife brought the priest to the bedside of a dying and semi-unconscious man. His death took place in 1875. In this parish is Tonacombe, a well-pre- served sixteenth century mansion, the hall re- taining its minstrels' gallery. In Morwenstow Church, below the altar, is a stone to the memory of John Kempthorne, who gave this house its panelling. Mount Edgcuinbe is claimed as one of the lions of Plymouth, and does much to add beauty to that imperial seaport ; it is really on Cornish soil, and is the seat of a Cornish peer. Its present occupant is the fourth Earl of Mount Edgcumbe (peerage created in 1789). The present house was begun in 1553. When 192