"Aw, 'deed, the ould Bishop bates the young pazon himself at putting out the talk--studdier-like, and not so fiery maybe; but, man alive, the tender he is!" "And d'ye mind that taste about Eli and them two idiot waistrels Hoffnee and Fin-e-ass?" "And did ye observe the ould man thrembling mortal?" "Och, yes, and I'll go bail it wasn't them two blackyards he was thinking of, at all, at all." When the service came to an end, and the congregation was breaking up, and Billy the Gawk was hobbling down the aisle on a pair of sticks, that hoary old sinner, turned saint because fallen sick, was muttering something about "a rael good ould father," and "dirts like than Dan," and "a thund'rin rascal with all." A strange scene came next. The last of the congregation had not yet reached the porch, when all at once there was an uneasy move among them like the ground-swell among the shoalings before the storm comes to shore. Those who were in front fell back or turned about and nodded as if they wished to say something; and those who were behind seemed to think and wonder. Then sudden as the sharp crack of the first breaker on a reef, the faces of the people fell to a great heaviness of horror, and the air was full of mournful exclamations, surprise, and terror. "Lord ha' massy!" "Dead, you say?" "Aw, dead enough." "Washed ashore by the Mooragh?" "So they're sayin', so they're sayin'." "_Hiain Jean myghin orrin_--Lord have mercy upon us!" Half a minute later the whole congregation were gathered outside the west porch. There, in the recess between the chapel and the house, two men, fisher-fellows of Michael, stood surrounded by a throng of people. Something lay at their feet, and the crowd made a circle about it, looked down at it, and drew long breaths. And when one after another came up, reached over the heads of others, and saw what lay within, he turned away with uplifted hands and a face that was white with fear. "Lord ha' massy! Lord ha' massy!" cried the people on every side, and their senses were confused and overpowered. What the dread thing was that lay at the feet of the two fishermen does not need to be said. "At the Mooragh, d'ye say--came ashore at the Mooragh?" "Ay, at the top of the flood." "God bless me!" "I saw it an hour before it drifted in," said one of the two grave fellows. "I was down 'longshore shrimping, and it was a good piece out to sea, and a heavy tide running. 'Lord ha' massy, what's that?' I says. 'It's a gig with a sail,' I was thinking, but no, it was looking too small. 'It's a diver, or maybe a solan goose with its wings stretched out'; but no, it was looking too big." "Bless me! Lord bless me!"