“Is it floatin’ in the waves ye are, _ma creevin cno_--wid the fishes surroundin’ ye?” sobbed Mrs. Fergus.
Sister Blanaid’s thick tongue took up the keening again. “’T was I druv her out! ‘Go ’long wid ye,’ says I, ‘an’ t’row that haythen box o’ yours into the bay’--an’ she went and t’rew her purty self in instead; woe an’ prosthration to this house!--an’ may the Lord--”
Father Jago at this took his elbow from the mantel and straightened himself. “Whisht, now, aisy!” he said, in a tone of parental authority. “There’s modheration in all things. Sure ye haven’t a scintilla of evidence that there’s annyone dead at all. Where’s the sinse of laminting a loss ye’re not sure of--and that, too, on an impty stomach?”
“Nevir bite or sup more will I take till I’ve tidings of her!’ said the mother superior.
“The more rayson why I’ll not be waiting longer for ye now,” commented the priest; and with this he left the room. As he closed the door behind him, a grateful odor of frying bacon momentarily spread upon the air. Mrs. Fergus sniffed it, and half rose from her seat; but the nuns clung resolutely to their theme, and she sank back again.
“’T is my belafe,” Sister Ellen began, “that voice we heard, ’t is from no Hostage at all--’t is the banshee of the O’Mahonys.”
“Is it likely, thin, Ellen O’Mahony,” she queried, “that _our_ banshee would be distressed for an O’Daly? Sure the grand noise was made whin Cormac himself disappeared.”
“His marryin’ me--’t is clear enough that putt him in the family,” said Mrs. Fergus. “’T would be flat injustice to me to ’ve my man go an’ never a keen raised for him. I’ll stand on me rights for that much Agnes O’Mahony.”
“A fine confusion ye’d have of it, thin,” retorted the mother superior. “The O’Dalys have their own banshee--she sat up her keen in Kilcrohane these hundreds of years--and for ours to be meddlin’ because she’s merely related by marriage--sure, ’t would not be endured.”
The dubious problem of a family banshee’s duties has never been elucidated beyond this point, for on the instant there came a violent ringing of the big bell outside, the hoarse clangor of which startled the women into excited silence. A minute later, the white-capped lame old woman-servant threw open the door.