But they knew the old, oft-repeated words praying for deliverance from the familiar dangers of lightning and tempest; from battle, murder, and sudden death; and nearly every man was aware that he left behind him some one who would watch for the prayer for the preservation of those who travel by land or by water, and think of him, as God-protected the more for the earnestness of the response then given.
There, too, lay the dead of many generations; for St.Nicholas had been the parish church ever since Monkshaven was a town, and the large churchyard was rich in the dead.

Masters, mariners, ship-owners, seamen: it seemed strange how few other trades were represented in that great plain so full of upright gravestones.

Here and there was a memorial stone, placed by some survivor of a large family, most of whom perished at sea:--'Supposed to have perished in the Greenland seas,' 'Shipwrecked in the Baltic,' 'Drowned off the coast of Iceland.' There was a strange sensation, as if the cold sea-winds must bring with them the dim phantoms of those lost sailors, who had died far from their homes, and from the hallowed ground where their fathers lay.
Each flight of steps up to this churchyard ended in a small flat space, on which a wooden seat was placed.

On this particular Sunday, all these seats were filled by aged people, breathless with the unusual exertion of climbing.

You could see the church stair, as it was called, from nearly every part of the town, and the figures of the numerous climbers, diminished by distance, looked like a busy ant-hill, long before the bell began to ring for afternoon service.
All who could manage it had put on a bit of black in token of mourning; it might be very little; an old ribbon, a rusty piece of crape; but some sign of mourning was shown by every one down to the little child in its mother's arms, that innocently clutched the piece of rosemary to be thrown into the grave 'for remembrance.' Darley, the seaman shot by the press-gang, nine leagues off St.
Abb's Head, was to be buried to-day, at the accustomed time for the funerals of the poorer classes, directly after evening service, and there were only the sick and their nurse-tenders who did not come forth to show their feeling for the man whom they looked upon as murdered.