“Ah—sure—’t is different wid you,” remarked Mrs. Fergus. “You’ve no proper notion of the m’aning of sleep. Faith, all your life you’ve been wakened bechune naps by your prayer-bell. ’T is no throuble to you. You’re accustomed to ’t. But wid me—if I’ve me rest broken, I’m killed entirely. ’T is me nerves!”
“Ay, them nerves of yours—did I ever hear of ’em before?” put in Mother Agnes, with a momentary gleam of carnal delight in combat on her waxen face. Then sadness resumed its sway. “Aye, aye, Katie! Katie!” she moaned, slowly shaking her vailed head. “Child of our prayers, daughter of the White Foam, pride of the O’Mahonys, darlin’ of our hearts—what ailed ye to l’ave us?”
The mother superior’s words quavered upward into a wail as they ended. The sound awakened the ancestral “keening” instinct in the other aged nuns, and stirred the thin blood in their veins. They broke forth in weird lamentations.
“Her hair was the glory of Desmond, that weighty and that fine!” chanted Sister Ellen. “Ah, wirra, wirra!”
“She had it from me,” said Mrs. Fergus, her hand straying instinctively to her crimps. Her voice had caught the mourning infection: “Ah-hoo! Katie Avourneen,” she wailed in vocal sympathy. “Come back to us, darlint!”
“She’d the neck of the Swan of the Lake of Three Castles!” mumbled Sister Blanaid. “’T was that same was said of Grace O’Sullivan—the bride of The O’Mahony of Ballydivlin—an’ he was kilt on the strand benayth the walls—an’ she lookin’ on wid her grand black eyes—”
“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.