The Church Tower. 75 
one; or so it appears in comparison with the small 
population of the place. But it may be that when it 
was built there were more inhabitants ; for some signs 
remain that here—as in many other such villages— 
the people have decreased in numbers: the popula- 
tion has shifted elsewhere. An adjacent parish lying 
just under the downs has now not more than fifty in- 
habitants ; yet in the olden time a church stood there 
—long since dismantled: the ancient churchyard is 
an orchard, no one being permitted to dig or plough 
the ground. 
Entering the tower by the narrow nail-studded 
door, it is not so easy to ascend the winding geo- 
metrical stone staircase, in the confined space and the 
darkness, for the arrow-slits are choked with cobwebs 
and the dust of years. A faint fluttering sound 
comes from above, as of wings beating the air in a 
confined space—it is the jackdaws in the belfry; 
just as the starlings and swallows in the huge 
old-fashioned chimneys make a similar murmuring 
noise before they settle. Passing a slit or two—the 
only means of marking the height which has been 
reached—and the dull tick of the old clock becomes 
audible: slow and accompanied with a peculiar 
grating vibration, as if the frame of the antique works 
had grown tremulous with age. The dial-plate out- 
side is square, placed at an angle to the perpendicular 
lines of the tower: the gilding of the hour-marks has 
long since tarnished and worn away before the storms, 
