Gatekeeper: What are you doing here, women? It’s no place to be spending the night time.
Mary Cahel: It is to speak with my son I am asking, that is gaoled these eight weeks and a day.
Gatekeeper: If you have no order to visit him it’s as good for you go away home.
Mary Cahel: I got this letter ere yesterday. It might be it is giving me leave.
Gatekeeper: If that’s so he should be under the doctor, or in the hospital ward.
Mary Cahel: It’s no wonder if he’s down with the hardship, for he had a great cough and a cold.
Gatekeeper: Give me here the letter to read it. Sure it never was opened at all.
Mary Cahel: Myself and this woman have no learning. We were loth to trust any other one.
Gatekeeper: It was posted in Galway the twentieth, and this is the last of the month.
Mary Cahel: We never thought to call at the post office. It was chance brought it to us in the end.