Em coated with salt grass." He pointed to the ragged edge of the cliff a score paces away. "They raised it out there," he said, "and further--a temple of bonded stone. They thought to bribe the Lord to a partnership in their corruption, and He answered by casting down the fair mansion into the waves." I said, "Who--who, my friend?" "They that builded the church," he answered. "Well," I said. "It seems a certain foolishness to set the edifice so close to the margin." Again he chuckled. "It was close, close, as you say; yet none so close as you might think nowadays. Time hath gnawed here like a rat on a cheese. But the foolishness appeared in setting the brave mansion between the winds and its own graveyard. Let the dead lie seawards, one had thought, and the church inland where we stand. So had the bell rung to this day; and only the charnel bones flaked piecemeal into the sea." "Ce