Many's the stormy night, when my husband couldn't keep still, but
would be out on the cliffs or on the breakwater, for no good in life, but
just to hear the roar of the waves that he could only see by the white of
them, with the balls o' foam flying in his face in the dark--many's the
such a night that I have left the house after he was gone, with this
blessed key in my hand, and crept into the old church here, and sat down
where I'm sittin' now--leastways where I was sittin' when your reverence
spoke to me--and hearkened to the wind howling about the place. The church
windows never rattle, sir--like the cottage windows, as I suppose you know,
sir. Somehow, I feel safe in the church."
"But if you had sons at sea," said I, again wishing to draw her out, "it
would not he of much good to you to feel safe yourself, so long as they
were in danger."
"O! yes, it be, sir. What's the good of feeling safe yourself but it let
you know other people be safe too? It's when you don't feel safe yourself
that you feel other people ben't safe."
"But," I said--and such confidence I had from what she had already uttered,
that I was sure the experiment was not a cruel one--"some of your sons
_were_ drowned for all that you say about their safety.
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