While yet the captain’s oaths were heard, and while the inhabitants on the shore were looking out from the cliffs, expecting, within an hour, to see the vessel, charged with their bells, safe in their harbour, one of these vast swellings of the ocean was seen. Onward came the grand billow in all the terror of its might. The ship rose not upon the waters as it came onward. She was overwhelmed, and sank in an instant close to the land.
As the vessel sank, the bells were heard tolling with a muffled sound, as if ringing the death-knell of the ship and sailors, of whom the good pilot alone escaped with life.
When storms are coming, and only then, the bells of Forrabury, with their dull, muffled sound, are heard from beneath the heaving sea, a warning to the wicked; and the tower has remained to this day silent.
THE TOWER OF MINSTER CHURCH.
“The Minster of the Trees! a lonely dell,
Deep with old oaks, and ’mid their quiet shade,
Gray with the moss of years, yon antique cell!
Sad are those walls: the cloister lowly laid,
Where pacing monks at solemn evening made