The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“Gone to church!” I said, a vague pang darting through me as I thought whether I had forgotten any service; but the next moment I recalled what the old woman had herself told me of her preference for the church during a storm.

“O yes, Agnes, I remember!” I said; “your mother thinks the weather bad enough to take to the church, does she? How do you come to be here now? Where is your husband?”

“He’ll be here in an hour or so, sir. He don’t mind the wet. You see, we don’t like the old people to be left alone when it blows what the sailors call ‘great guns.’”

“And what becomes of his mother then?”

“There don’t be any sea out there, sir. Leastways,” she added with a quiet smile, and stopped.

“You mean, I suppose, Agnes, that there is never any perturbation of the elements out there?”

She laughed; for she understood me well enough. The temper of Joe’s mother was proverbial.

“But really, sir,” she said, “she don’t mind the weather a bit; and though we don’t live in the same cottage with her, for Joe wouldn’t hear of that, we see her far oftener than we see my mother, you know.”

“I’m sure it’s quite fair, Agnes. Is Joe very sorry that he married you, now?”

She hung her head, and blushed so deeply through all her sallow complexion, that I was sorry I had teased her, and said so. This brought a reply.

“I don’t think he be, sir. I do think he gets better. He’s been working very hard the last week or two, and he says it agrees with him.”

“And how are you?”

“Quite well, thank you, sir.”

I had never seen her look half so well. Life was evidently a very different thing to both of them now. I left her, and took my way to the church.

When I reached the churchyard, there, in the middle of the rain and the gathering darkness, was the old man busy with the duties of his calling. A certain headstone stood right under a drip from the roof of the southern transept; and this drip had caused the mould at the foot of the stone, on the side next the wall, to sink, so that there was a considerable crack between the stone and the soil. The old man had cut some sod from another part of the churchyard, and was now standing, with the rain pouring on him from the roof, beating this sod down in the crack. He was sheltered from the wind by the church, but he was as wet as he could be. I may mention that he never appeared in the least disconcerted when I came upon him in the discharge of his functions: he was so content with his own feeling in the matter, that no difference of opinion could disturb him.

“This will never do, Coombes,” I said. “You will get your death of cold. You must be as full of water as a sponge. Old man, there’s rheumatism in the world!”

“It be only my work, sir. But I believe I ha’ done now for a night. I think he’ll be a bit more comfortable now. The very wind could get at him through that hole.”

“Do go home, then,” I said, “and change your clothes. Is your wife in the church?”

“She be, sir. This door, sir—this door,” he added, as he saw me going round to the usual entrance. “You’ll find her in there.”

I lifted the great latch and entered. I could not see her at first, for it was much darker inside the church. It felt very quiet in there somehow, although the place was full of the noise of winds and waters. Mrs. Coombes was not sitting on the bell-keys, where I looked for her first, for the wind blew down the tower in many currents and draughts—how it did roar up there—as if the louvres had been a windsail to catch the wind and send it down to ventilate the church!—she was sitting at the foot of the chancel-rail, with her stocking as usual.

The sight of her sweet old face, lighted up by a moonlike smile as I drew near her, in the middle of the ancient dusk filled with sounds, but only sounds of tempest, gave me a sense of one dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, such as I shall never forget. It was no time to say much, however.

“How long do you mean to stay here, Mrs. Coombes?” I asked. “Not all night?”

“No, not all night, surely, sir. But I hadn’t thought o’ going yet for a bit.”

“Why there’s Coombes out there, wet to the skin; and I’m afraid he’ll go on pottering at the churchyard bed-clothes till he gets his bones as full of rheumatism as they can hold.”

“Deary me! I didn’t know as my old man was there. He tould me he had them all comforble for the winter a week ago. But to be sure there’s always some mendin’ to do.”

I heard the voice of Joe outside, and the next moment he came into the church. After speaking to me, he turned to Mrs. Coombes.

“You be comin’ home with me, mother. This will never do. Father’s as wet as a mop. I ha’ brought something for your supper, and Aggy’s a-cookin’ of it; and we’re going to be comfortable over the fire, and have a chapter or two of the New Testament to keep down the noise of the sea. There! Come along.”

The old woman drew her cloak over her head, put her knitting carefully in her pocket, and stood aside for me to lead the way.

“No, no,” I said; “I’m the shepherd and you’re the sheep, so I’ll drive you before me—at least, you and Coombes. Joe here will be offended if I take on me to say I am his shepherd.”

“Nay, nay, don’t say that, sir. You’ve been a good shepherd to me when I was a very sulky sheep. But if you’ll please to go, sir, I’ll lock the door behind; for you know in them parts the shepherd goes first and the sheep follow the shepherd. And I’ll follow like a good sheep,” he added, laughing.

“You’re right, Joe,” I said, and took the lead without more ado.

I was struck by his saying them parts, which seemed to indicate a habit of pondering on the places as well as circumstances of the gospel-story. The sexton joined us at the door, and we all walked to his cottage, Joe taking care of his mother-in-law and I taking what care I could of Coombes by carrying his tools for him. But as we went I feared I had done ill in that, for the wind blew so fiercely that I thought the thin feeble little man would have got on better if he had been more heavily weighted against it. But I made him take a hold of my arm, and so we got in. The old man took his tools from me and set them down in the mill, for the roof of which I felt some anxiety as we passed through, so full of wind was the whole space. But when we opened the inner door the welcome of a glowing fire burst up the stair as if that had been a well of warmth and light below. I went down with them. Coombes departed to change his clothes, and the rest of us stood round the fire, where Agnes was busy cooking something like white puddings for their supper.

“Did you hear, sir,” said Joe, “that the coastguard is off to the Goose-pot? There’s a vessel ashore there, they say. I met them on the road with the rocket-cart.”

“How far off is that, Joe?”

“Some five or six miles, I suppose, along the coast nor’ards.”

“What sort of a vessel is she?”

“That I don’t know. Some say she be a schooner, others a brigantine. The coast-guard didn’t know themselves.”

“Poor things!” said Mrs. Coombes. “If any of them comes ashore, they’ll be sadly knocked to pieces on the rocks in a night like this.”

She had caught a little infection of her husband’s mode of thought.

“It’s not likely to clear up before morning, I fear; is it, Joe?”

“I don’t think so, sir. There’s no likelihood.”

“Will you condescend to sit down and take a share with us, sir?” said the old woman.

“There would be no condescension in that, Mrs. Coombes. I will another time with all my heart; but in such a night I ought to be at home with my own people. They will be more uneasy if I am away.”

“Of coorse, of coorse, sir.”

“So I’ll bid you good-night. I wish this storm were well over.”

I buttoned my great-coat, pulled my hat down on my head, and set out. It was getting on for high water. The night was growing very dark. There would be a moon some time, but the clouds were so dense she could not do much while they came between. The roaring of the waves on the shore was terrible; all I could see of them now was the whiteness of their breaking, but they filled the earth and the air with their furious noises. The wind roared from the sea; two oceans were breaking on the land, only to the one had been set a hitherto—to the other none. Ere the night was far gone, however, I had begun to doubt whether the ocean itself had not broken its bars.

I found the whole household full of the storm. The children kept pressing their faces to the windows, trying to pierce, as by force of will, through the darkness, and discover what the wild thing out there was doing. They could see nothing: all was one mass of blackness and dismay, with a soul in it of ceaseless roaring. I ran up to Connie’s room, and found that she was left alone. She looked restless, pale, and frightened. The house quivered, and still the wind howled and whistled through the adjoining bark-hut.

“Connie, darling, have they left you alone?” I said.

“Only for a few minutes, papa. I don’t mind it.”

“Don’t he frightened at the storm, my dear. He who could walk on the sea of Galilee, and still the storm of that little pool, can rule the Atlantic just as well. Jeremiah says he ‘divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar.’”