"I adore them," answered Angus, who had not been inside a church on a week-day since he was best man at a friend's wedding. "Then we will all go together," said Jessie. "May Brook bring the pony-carriage to fetch us home, Mrs. Tregonell? I have an idea that Mr. Hamleigh won't be equal to the walk home." "More than equal to twenty such walks!" answered Angus, gaily. "You under-estimate the severity of the training to which I have submitted myself during the last three weeks." "The pony-carriage may as well meet you in any case," said Mrs. Tregonell. And the order was straightway given. They started at ten o'clock, giving themselves ample leisure for a walk of something over two miles--a walk by hill and valley, and rushing stream, and picturesque wooden bridge--through a deep gorge where the dark-red cattle were grouped against a background of gorse and heather--a walk of which one could never grow weary--so lonely, so beautiful, so perfect a blending of all that is wildest and all that is most gracious in Nature--an Alpine ramble on a small scale. Minster Church lies in a hollow of the hill, so shut in by the wooded ridge which shelters its grey walls, that the stranger comes upon it as an architectural surprise. "How is it you have never managed to finish your tower?" asked Mr. Hamleigh, surveying the rustic fane with a critical air, as he descended to the churchyard by some rugged stone steps on the side of the grassy hill. "You cannot be a particularly devout people, or you would hardly have allowed your parish church to remain in this stunted and stinted condition." "There was a tower once," said Christabel, naïvely; "the stones are still in the churchyard; but the monks used to burn a light in the tower window--a light that shone through a cleft in the hills, and was seen far out at sea." "I believe that is geographically--or geometrically impossible," said Angus laughing; "but pray go on." "The light was often mistaken for a beacon, and the ships came ashore and were wrecked on the rocks." "Naturally--and no doubt the monks improved the occasion. Why should a Cornish monk be better than his countrymen? 'One and all' is your motto." "They were not Cornish monks," answered Christabel, "but a brotherhood of French monks from the monastery of St. Sergius, at Angers. They were established in a Priory here by William de Bottreaux, in the reign of Richard, Coeur de Lion; and, according to tradition, the townspeople resented their having built the church so far from the town. I feel sure the monks could have had no evil intention in burning a light; but one night a crew of wild sailors attacked the tower, and pulled the greater part of it down." "And nobody in Boscastle has had public spirit enough to get it set up again. Where is your respect for those early Christian martyrs, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, to whose memory your temple is dedicated?"