Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/223

Rh "The west front is quite plain; the top has the remains of a kind of mortice, left hand corner broken off. The east front is dotted over, but has no letters.

"I find in Hals, that the pit in which the stone with the inscription lies, was formed in the latter end of the reign of Charles II. in consequence of his, Hals's, going there at that period with some gentlemen, to view, as he says, the, at that time thought barbarous, inscription; for some tinners in the contiguous country, taking notice of these gentlemen visiting this place, apprehended they came there in quest of some hidden treasure; whereupon, as Hals says, some of them wiser than the rest, lay their heads together, and resolved in council to be before-hand, and accordingly went with pickaxes and shovels, and opened the earth round about the monument, to the depth of about six feet; when they discovered a spacious vault walled about, and arched over with stones, having on the sides thereof two stone seats, not unlike those in churches for auricular confession. The sight of all which struck them with consternation, or a kind of horror, that they incontinently gave over search, and with the utmost hurry and dread, throwing earth and turf to fill up the pit they made, they departed, having neither of them the courage to enter or even to inspect into the further circumstances of the place; which account Hals says, he had from the mouths of some of the very fellows themselves. Some short while after, the loose earth, by reason of some heavy rains which fell, sunk away into the vault, which occasioning also a sort of terræ-motus and concession of the earth adjoining, the said monument was at length so undermined thereby, that it fell to the ground, where it still remains. Would some gentlemen of ability and curiosity, says Hals, and so say I, be at the charge of again opening and cleansing this under-ground chapel, or whatever else it may be denominated, it might probably afford matter of pleasing amusement, if