my and disastrous look. The air, too, seems
just now unusually still and heavy here--for the evening is at hand, and
the vapours are rising in the wood. The shadows of the trees are
deepening; the rustling music of the waterfall is growing dreary; the
utter stillness of all things besides, becomes wearying to the ear. Let
us pass on, and get into bright wide space again, where the down leads
back to happier solitudes by the seashore.

We now rapidly lose sight of the trees which have hitherto so closely
surrounded us, and find ourselves treading the short scanty grass of the
cliff-top once more. We still advance northward, walking along rough
cart-roads, and skirting the extremities of narrow gullies leading down
to the sea, until we enter the picturesque village of Boscastle. Then,
descending a long street of irregular houses, of all sizes, shapes, and
ages, we are soon conducted to the bottom of a deep hollow. Beyond this,
the bare ground rises again abruptly up to the highest point of the
high cliffs which overhang the shore; and here, where the site is most
elevated, and where neither cottages nor cultivation appear, we descry
the ancient walls and gloomy tower of Forrabury Church.

The interior of the building still contains a part of the finely-carved
rood-loft which once adorned it. Its rickety wooden pews are blackened
with extreme old age, and covered with curiously-cut patterns and
cyphers. The place is so dark that it is difficult to read the
inscriptions on many of the mouldering monuments, fixed together without
order or symmetry on the walls. Outside are some Saxon arches, oddly
built of black slate-stone; and the window-mouldings are ornamented with
rough carving, which at once proclaims its own antiquity. But it is in
the tower that the interest attached to the church chiefly centres.
Square, thick, and of no extraordinary height, it resembles in
appearance most other towers in Cornwall--except in one particular, all
the belfry windows are completely stopped up.

This peculiarity is to be explained simply enough; the church has never
had any bells; the old tower has been mute, and useless except for
ornament, since it was first built. The congregation of the district
must trust to their watches and their punctuality to get to service in
good time on Sundays. At Forrabury the chimes have never sounded for a
marriage: the knell has never been heard for a funeral.

To know the reason of this; to discover