She
stopped the people who had come over from the south island to ask
them with a terrified whisper what is thought over there.
Later in the evening, when I was sitting in one of the cottages, the
sister of the dead man came in through the rain with her infant, and
there was a long talk about the rumours that had come in. She pieced
together all she could remember about his clothes, and what his
purse was like, and where he had got it, and the same for his
tobacco box, and his stockings. In the end there seemed little doubt
that it was her brother.
'Ah!' she said, 'It's Mike sure enough, and please God they'll give
him a decent burial.'
Then she began to keen slowly to herself. She had loose yellow hair
plastered round her head with the rain, and as she sat by the door
sucking her infant, she seemed like a type of the women's life upon
the islands.
For a while the people sat silent, and one could hear nothing but
the lips of the infant, the rain hissing in the yard, and the
breathing of four pigs that lay sleeping in one corner.
