he had to see a surgeon; and this surgeon happened to be
Mr. John Dinham, Hawker's brother-in-law. Two days after the accident
Tennyson drove over to Morwenstow with Dinham to see Hawker. His own
note on the visit is brief and unsatisfying: "In a gig to Rev. S.
Hawker, at Morwenstow, passing Comb Valley, fine view over sea,
coldest manner of vicar till I told my name, then all heartiness. Walk
on cliff with him; told of shipwreck." This is very meagre. Happily
Hawker himself wrote down a more detailed account, and this was
discovered among his brother's papers. It was headed with a cross,
signifying that it recorded what Hawker deemed a mark of divine
favour. "It was in the month of June, 1848, that my brother-in-law,
John Dinham, arrived at Morwenstow with a very fine-looking man whom
he had been called in to attend professionally at Bude for an injury
in the knee from a fall.... I found my guest at his entrance a tall,
swarthy, Spanish-looking man, with an eye like a sword. He sate down,
and we conversed. I at once found myself with no common mind. All
poetry in particular he seemed to use like household words.... Before
we left the room he said, 'Do you know my name?' I said, 'No, I have
not even a guess.' 'Do you wish to know it?' 'I don't much care--that
which we call a rose, &c.' 'Well then,' said he, 'my name is
_Tennyson_!' 'What!' said I, '_the_ Tennyson?' 'What do you mean by
_the_ Tennyson? I am Alfred Tennyson who wrote Locksley Hall, which
you seem to know by heart.' So we grasped hands, and the Shepherd's
heart was glad.... Then, seated on the brow of the cliff, with
Dundagel full in view, he revealed to me the purpose of his journey to
the West. He is about to conceive a poem--the hero King Arthur--the
scenery in part the vanished Land of Lyonesse, between the mainland
and the Scilly Isles.... Then evening fell. He arose to go; and I
agreed to drive him on his way. He demanded a pipe, and produced a
package of very common shag. By great good luck my sexton had about
him his own short black dudheen, which accordingly the Minstrel filled
and fired. Wild language occupied the way, until we shook farewell at
Combe. 'This,' said Tennyson, 'has indeed been a day to be
remembered.'" Hawker had a presentiment that they would never meet
again, and they never did, though Tennyson visited Cornwall in later
years. There was some slight correspondence, and an interchange of
books; but the two drifted apart in spirit--