“The Murphys. The Sweeneys. The Moores.”
“Divil a one. Wait while I think of it now.”
And the Man from Kilsheelan sat holding his face as if it hurt him, and his comrade kept saying at him: “Duhy, then? Coman? McGrath?” and driving him distracted with his O this and O that, his Mc he—s and Mc she—s.
Well, he could not think of it; but when they walked on they had not far to go, for they came over a twist of the hills and there was the ocean, and the neat little town of Ballygoveen in a bay of it below, with the wreck of a ship lying sunk near the strand. There was a sharp cliff at either horn of the bay, and between them some bullocks stravaiging on the beach.
“Truth is a fortune,” cried the Man from Kilsheelan, “this it is.”
They went down the hill to the strand near the wreck, and just on the wing of the town they saw a paddock full of hemp stretched drying, and a house near it, and a man weaving a rope. He had a great cast of hemp around his loins, and a green apron. He walked backwards to the sea, and a young girl stood turning a little wheel as he went away from her.
“God save you,” said Tom Tool to her, “for who are you weaving this rope?”
“For none but God himself and the hangman,” said she.
Turning the wheel she was, and the man going away from it backwards, and the dead wreck in the rocky bay; a fine sweet girl of good dispose and no ways drifty.
“Long life to you then, young woman,” says he. “But that’s a strong word, and a sour word, the Lord spare us all.”