Fortunately the height of the vault was so great as to allow the full swing of the bell to complete itself without bringing me into contact with the roof. The men cried out to me to hold on tight. I did so, and descended safely--so unharmed that I was very desirous of repeating the experiment, which, as may be supposed, was not allowed. I can pull a bell more knowingly now. The charming old church at Gloucester was not kept and cared for in those days as it is now--a remark which is applicable, as recent visits have shown me, to nearly all the cathedral churches in England. I may observe also, since one object of these pages is to mark the social changes in English life since my young days, that the improvement in the tone and manner of performing the choral service in our cathedrals is as striking as the increased care for the fabrics. It used for the most part to be a careless, perfunctory, and not very reverent or decorous performance when George the Third was king. Those were the days when one minor canon could be backed to give another to “Pontius Pilate” in the Creed, and beat him! Other times, other manners! I think that the points in that still well-remembered tour, that most of all delighted me, were, first of all, Lynton and Lynmouth, on the north coast of Devon; then the banks of the Wye from Chepstow to Ross; and thirdly, Raglan Castle. I had already read the _Mysteries of Udolpho_, with more enjoyment probably than any other reading has ever afforded me. It was an ecstasy of delight, tempered only by the impossibility of gratifying my intense longing to start forthwith to see the places and countries described. And when I did in long after years see them! Oh, Mrs. Ratcliffe, how could you tell such tales! What! this the lovely Provence of my dreams? But I was fresh from _The Mysteries_, and full of faith when I went to Raglan, and strove to apply, at least as a matter of possibility, the incidents of the romance to the localities of the delightful ruin.