ckly, for the Lord knows when she'll be
out of it again.

NORA [Getting the bundle from the loft.]

The young priest said he'd be passing to-morrow, and we might go down
and speak to him below if it's Michael's they are surely.

CATHLEEN [Taking the bundle.]

Did he say what way they were found?

NORA [Coming down.]

"There were two men," says he, "and they rowing round with poteen before
the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught the body, and they
passing the black cliffs of the north."

CATHLEEN [Trying to open the bundle.]

Give me a knife, Nora, the string's perished with the salt water, and
there's a black knot on it you wouldn't loosen in a week.

NORA [Giving her a knife.]

I've heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.

CATHLEEN [Cutting the string.]

It is surely. There was a man in here a while ago--the man sold us that
knife--and he said if you set off walking from the rocks beyond, it
would be seven days you'd be in Donegal.

NORA And what time would a man take, and he floating?

[Cathleen opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look
at them eagerly.]

CATHLEEN [In a low voice.]

The Lord spare us, Nora! isn't it a queer hard thing to say if it's his
they are surely?

NORA I'll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel
on the other [she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner.]
It's not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?

CATHLEEN I'm thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own
shirt was heavy with the salt in it [pointing to the corner]. There's a
bit of a sleeve was of the same stuff. Give me that and it will do.

[Nora brings it to her and they compare the flannel.]

CATHLEEN It's the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself aren't there
great rolls of it in the shops of Galway, and isn't it many another man
may have a shirt of it as well as Michael himself?

NORA [Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying
out.]

It's Michael, Cathleen, it's Michael; God spare his soul, and what will
herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the sea?

CATHLEEN [Taking the stocking.]

It's a plain stocking.

NORA It's the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three
score stitches, and I dropped four of them.

CATHLEEN [Counts the stitches.]

It's that number is in it [crying out.] Ah, Nora, isn't it a bitter
thing to think of him floating that way to the far north, a