When death was certain the men began to mourn over Kisseck, and recount their memories concerning him.
"Well, Bill's cruise is up, poor fellow; and a rael good skipper anyway."
"Poor Bill! What's that it's sayin'?—'He who makes a ditch for another may fall into it himself.'"
None spoke to Danny. A kind of awe fell on them in their dealings with the lad. They let him alone. It was as if he had been the instrument in greater hands.
"He hadn't a lazy bone in him, hadn't Bill. Aw, well, God will be aisy on the poor chap."
"You have to summer and winter a man before you know him. And leave it to me to know Kisseck. I've shared work, shared meat with him this many a year."
"And a fine big chap, and as straight as the backbone of a herring. Aw, well, well, well."
"Still, for sure, Bill made a man toe the mark. I'm thinking, poor chap, he's got summat to answer for anyway. Well, well, every man must go to the mill with his own sack."
Then they compared memories of how the dead man had foreseen his end. One remembered that Kisseck had said he knew he should not die in his bed. Another recalled the fact that on Good Friday morning Kisseck struck the griddle that hung in the ingle and tumbled it into the fire. This tangible warning of approaching death the witness had seen with his own eyes. A third man remembered that Kisseck had met a cat when going home on Oie houiney (Hallow Eve). And if these prognostications had counted for little, there was the remaining and awful fact that on New Year's Eve Bridget Kisseck had raked the fire on going to bed, and spread the ashes on the floor with the tongs, and next morning had found that print of a foot pointing toward the door which was the certain forewarning of death in the household within a year.
They were doubling the Point of Ayre, with no clear purpose before them, and with some misgivings as to whether they had done wisely in setting out to sea at all, when the wind fell to a dead calm. Then through the silence and darkness they heard large drops of rain fall on the deck. Presently there came a torrent, which lasted nearly an hour. The men turned in; only Danny and the body remained on deck. Still the lad could see the glow of the fire on the cliff, which was now miles away. When the rain ceased, the darkness, which had been all but palpable, lifted away, and the stars came out. Toward three in the morning the moon rose, but it was soon concealed by a dense black turret cloud that reared itself upward from the horizon. All this time the fishing-boat lay motionless, with only the lap of the waters heard about her.