The windows of the church no doubt looked
ghastly, as I peered in to see whether Wynne's lantern was moving
about. But all was still. I lingered in the churchyard close by the
spot where I had first seen the child Winifred and heard the Welsh
song.
I went to look at the sea from the cliff. Here, however, there was
something sensational at last. The spot where years ago I had sat
when Winifred's song had struck upon my ear and awoke me to a new
life--_was gone_! 'This then was the noise I heard,' I said; 'the
rumbling was the falling of the earth; the shriek was the tearing
down of trees.'
Another slice, a slice weighing thousands of tons, had slipped since
the afternoon from the churchyard on to the sands below. 'Perhaps the
tread of the townspeople who came to witness the funeral may have
given the last shake to the soil,' I said.
I stood and looked over the newly-made gap at the great hungry water.
Considering the little wind, the swell on the North Sea was
tremendous. Far away there had been a storm somewhere. The moon was
laying a band of living light across the vast bosom of the sea, like
a girdle.
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