CATHLEEN. Maybe she'd wake up on us, and come in before we'd done. (_Coming to the table_) It's a long time we'll be, and the two of us crying. NORA (_goes to the inner door and listens_). She's moving about on the bed. She'll be coming in a minute. CATHLEEN. Give me the ladder, and I'll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won't know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she'll be going down to see would he be floating from the east. (_They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney_; CATHLEEN _goes up a few steps and hides the bundle in the turf-loft. MAURYA comes from the inner room._) MAURYA (_looking up at CATHLEEN and speaking querulously_). Isn't it turf enough you have for this day and evening? CATHLEEN. There's a cake baking at the fire for a short space (_throwing down the turf_) and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to Connemara. (NORA _picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven._) MAURYA (_sitting down on a stool at the fire_). He won't go this day with the wind rising from the south and west. He won't go this day, for the young priest will stop him surely. NORA. He'll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety and Colum Shawn saying he would go. MAURYA. Where is he itself? NORA. He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I'm thinking it won't be long till he's here now, for the tide's turning at the green head, and the hooker's tacking from the east. CATHLEEN. I hear someone passing the big stones. NORA (_looking out_). He's coming now, and he in a hurry. BARTLEY (_comes in and looks round the room; speaking sadly and quietly_). Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara? CATHLEEN (_coming down_). Give it to him, Nora; it's on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it. NORA (_giving him a rope_). Is that it, Bartley? MAURYA. You'd do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards. (BARTLEY _takes the rope._) It will be wanting in this place, I'm telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it's a deep grave we'll make him by the grace of God. BARTLEY (_beginning to work with the rope_). I've no halter the way I can ride down on the mare, and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses, I heard them saying below. MAURYA. It's a hard thing they'll be saying below if the body is washed up and there's no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you'd find in Connemara. (_She looks round at the boards._) BARTLEY. How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for nine days, and a strong wind blowing a while back from the west and south?