A Rivermouth Romance. Aldrich Thomas Bailey

to the shorn lamb. The flushed, prematurely old face that now looked up at her moved the good lady’s pity.

      “What do you want?” she asked kindly.

      “Me wife.”

      “There ‘s no wife for you here,” said Mrs. Bilkins, somewhat taken aback. “His wife!” she thought; “it’s a mother the poor boy stands in need of.”

      “Me wife,” repeated Mr. O’Rourke, “for betther or for worse.”

      “You had better go away,” said Mrs. Bilkins, bridling up, “or it will be the worse for you.”

      “To have and to howld,” continued Mr. O’Rourke, wandering retrospectively in the mazes of the marriage service, “to have and to howld, till death—bad luck to him!—takes one or the ither of us.”

      “You ‘re a blasphemous creature,” said Mrs. Bilkins, severely.

      “Thim ‘s the words his riverince spake this mornin’, standin’ foreninst us,” explained Mr. O’Rourke. “I stood here, see, and me jew’l stood there, and the howly chaplain beyont.”

      And Mr. O’Rourke with a wavering forefinger drew a diagram of the interesting situation on the door-step.

      “Well,” returned Mrs. Bilkins, “if you ‘re a married man, all I have to say is, there’s a pair of fools instead of one. You had better be off; the person you want does n’t live here.”

      “Bedad, thin, but she does.”

      “Lives here?”

      “Sorra a place else.”

      “The man’s crazy,” said Mrs. Bilkins to herself.

      While she thought him simply drunk she was not in the least afraid; but the idea that she was conversing with a madman sent a chill over her. She reached back her hand preparatory to shutting the door, when Mr. O’Rourke, with an agility that might have been expected from his previous gymnastics, set one foot on the threshold and frustrated the design.

      “I want me wife,” he said sternly.

      Unfortunately, Mr. Bilkins had gone up town, and there was no one in the house except Margaret, whose pluck was not to be depended on. The case was urgent. With the energy of despair Mrs. Bilkins suddenly placed the toe of her boot against Mr. O’Rourke’s invading foot, and pushed it away. The effect of this attack was to cause Mr. O’Rourke to describe a complete circle on one leg, and then sit down heavily on the threshold. The lady retreated to the hat-stand, and rested her hand mechanically on the handle of a blue cotton umbrella. Mr. O’Rourke partly turned his head and smiled upon her with conscious superiority. At this juncture a third actor appeared on the scene, evidently a friend of Mr. O’Rourke, for he addressed that gentleman as “a spalpeen,” and told him to go home.

      “Divil an inch,” replied the spalpeen; but he got himself off the threshold, and returned his position on the step.

      “It’s only Larry, mum,” said the man, touching his forelock politely; “as dacent a lad as iver lived, when he ‘s not in liquor; an’ I ‘ve known him to be sober for days to-gither,” he added, reflectively. “He don’t mane a ha’p’orth o’ harum, but jist now he’s not quite in his right moind.”

      “I should think not,” said Mrs. Bilkins, turning from the speaker to Mr. O’Rourke, who had seated himself gravely on the scraper, and was weeping. “Hasn’t the man any friends?”

      “Too many of ‘em, mum, an’ it’s along wid dhrinkin’ toasts wid ‘em that Larry got throwed. The punch that spalpeen has dhrunk this day would amaze ye. He give us the slip awhiles ago, bad ‘cess to him, an’ come up here. Did n’t I tell ye, Larry, not to be afther ringin’ at the owld gintleman’s knocker? Ain’t ye got no sinse at all?”

      “Misther Donnehugh,” responded Mr. O’Rourke with great dignity, “ye ‘re dhrunk agin.”

      Mr. Donnehugh, who had not taken more than thirteen ladles of rum-punch, disdained to reply directly.

      “He’s a dacent lad enough”—this to Mrs. Bilkins—“but his head is wake. Whin he’s had two sups o’ whiskey he belaves he’s dhrunk a bar’l full. A gill o’ wather out of a jimmy-john ‘d fuddle him, mum.”

      “Is n’t there anybody to look after him?”

      “No, mum, he’s an orphan; his father and mother live in the owld counthry, an’ a fine hale owld couple they are.”

      “Has n’t he any family in the town”—