Two men entered the house, the water streaming from their clothes and each holding a burdened oar in his hands. Across the oars a sail was bound tightly, and cold in death on the sail lay James Ryan, his grey beard sticking out stiffly, his eyes open, his head shaking from side to side, his bare feet blue with the cold. The oars, which brushed sharply against the old woman in passing, were laid on the floor and the dead man was placed on the bed.
“I’m sweatin’ like a pig!” said one of the bearers, and he rubbed his wrinkled brow violently with the back of his hand.
“Watch the thatch!” someone outside shouted. The torch was extinguished and a crowd of men entered the cabin. An old red-haired fisherman lifted the oars; the sail was rolled into a bundle and carried out again. Pools of water formed on the floor and tracks of wet feet showed all over it. The old woman hobbled back to her bed and gazed long and earnestly at her husband; some of the men took off their hats; one was smoking, another dressed a bleeding foot and told how he hit it against a sharp rock when carrying the dead man up from the sea; several of the neighbouring women were already in the house. Maire a Crick was on her knees by the bedside.
“I am used to it now,” said the old woman, as she sorted the blankets on the bed with her withered hands. “Ten sons and daughters, and another away and maybe never hearing from him again.... Himself said when he was going out that the morrow never comes.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, ran her fingers over the wet clothes of her husband, opened his vest, put her hand on his heart, shook her head sadly and buttoned the coat again.
“Just when he was putting out the wind caught him, and he dropped like a stone over the side of the curragh,” the red-haired fisherman was saying. “But the boat was no good anyway. It is one of the Congested Districts Board’s boats that he should have.”
“Where would he get the money to buy one?” asked Maire a Crick, turning round from the prayer which she was saying for the dead man.
“The money can be paid in instalments,” answered the red fisherman. He spoke the Gaelic, as nearly everybody in Frosses did, but the words “instalments” and “Congested Districts Board” were said in English. “Ten pounds the new boats cost, and there is five years allowed for paying the money.”
“The Congested Districts Board is going to be a great help,” someone remarked.
“Is the curragh safe?” asked Mary Ryan, turning round. She was still sitting beside the bed, turning over the clothes with lean, shaky fingers.