It is but selfish, cheating, or
ill-done work that the church's Master drives away. All our work ought to
be done in the shadow of the church."
"I thought you be only having a talk about it, sir," she said, smiling her
sweet old smile. "Nobody knows what this old church is to me."
Now the old woman had a good husband, apparently: the sorrows which had
left their mark even upon her smile, must have come from her family, I
thought.
"You have had a family?" I said, interrogatively.
"I've had thirteen," she answered. "Six bys and seven maidens."
"Why, you are rich!" I returned. "And where are they all?"
"Four maidens be lying in the churchyard, sir; two be married, and one be
down in the mill, there."
"And your boys?"
"One of them be lyin' beside his sisters--drownded afore my eyes, sir.
Three o' them be at sea, and two o' them in it, sir."
At sea! I thought. What a wide _where_! As vague to the imagination,
almost, as _in the other world_. How a mother's thoughts must go roaming
about the waste, like birds that have lost their nest, to find them!
As this thought kept me silent for a few moments, she resumed.
"It be no wonder, be it, sir? that I like to creep into the church with my
knitting.
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