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, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying on the sea?
NORA. _Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes._—And isn’t it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?
CATHLEEN. _After an instant._—Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path.
NORA. _Looking out._—She is, Cathleen. She’s coming up to the door.
CATHLEEN. Put these things away before she’ll come in. Maybe it’s easier she’ll be after giving her blessing to Bartley, and we won’t let on we’ve heard anything the time he’s on the sea.
NORA. _Helping Cathleen to close the bundle._—We’ll put them here in the corner.
[_They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. Cathleen goes back to the spinning-wheel._]