She came so close under cliff that only her topmast could be seen; when black clouds—that seemed to rise out of the deep—gathered around her and extended thence straight to the dying man's dwelling. [249] The harvest-men, terrified at the sight of this ship-of-doom so near them, ran up to the town-place, just as the old sinner died, when his dwelling shook as if about to fall. Everybody, in great fright, rushed out and saw the black clouds roll off towards the death-ship, which, at once, sailed away—amidst a blaze of lightning—far over sea, and disappeared. The weather immediately cleared, and nothing unusual occurred until a few men assembled to put the wrecker's ghastly remains quickly off the face of the earth; then, as the coffin was borne towards the churchyard, a large black pig came—no one knew from whence—and followed the bearers, who all declared the coffin was too light to contain any body. The sky, too, became suddenly overcast, and a tempest raged to that degree, they could scarcely keep on their legs to reach the churchyard stile, where such sheets of blinding lightning flashed around them, that they dropped the coffin and rushed into the church. The storm having abated, they ventured out, and found nothing of the coffin but its handles and a few nails, for it had been set on fire, and all else consumed, by the lightning. It does not appear what business the black pig had in the funeral procession; such is the way, however, in which the story is always told. The Sun Never Shines on Those Who Have "Sworn Away a Life." ONE frequently hears, in remote country places, the reproachful sayings of, "The sun wont shine on thee," or, "the sun don't shine on thee." This is regarded as a very bitter taunt, even by those who do not understand its allusion or the old belief from which it proceeds. The following story, told me by an aged mine captain, of Lelant, will serve to explain it. A few years ago a smuggler of Breage gave false evidence, which caused one of another crew to be hanged, on the charge of having fired a fatal shot at an officer belonging to a revenue cutter. [250] This perjurer, who swore away an innocent man's life, received—for informing—such a sum of blood money as made him comparatively rich, yet he remained at sea for several years, until he came to live at Hayle. Few persons there knew him; but everybody remarked that he looked deathly pale and shivered with cold, however warm the weather might be. He lived alone and rarely left his house to go beyond his garden, and his neighbours said that when he stood out in "sunshiney" weather he cast no shadow. They surmised that he had been forsworn; for he could never see the sun, and the sky always appeared dark to him; yet he saw everything else the same as other people. After his decease it became known how he had caused an innocent man's death.