"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."