“Well, my dear,” replied Mrs Mooney, with a deprecatory smile, “that ain’t an uncommon state o’ things, an’ you’ve no call to be ’ard on a poor widdy like yourself takin’ a little consolation now an’ then when she can get it. I just thought I’d like to comfort—”
“I don’t want no comfort,” cried Mrs Lockley in a sharp tone. “Leave me. Go away!”
There was something so terrible in the mingled look of grief and anger which disturbed the handsome features of the young wife that Mrs Mooney, partly awed and partly alarmed, turned at once and left the house. She did not feel aggrieved, only astonished and somewhat dismayed. After a few moments of meditation she set off, intending to relieve her feelings in the “Blue Boar.” On her way she chanced to meet no less a personage than Pat Stiver, who, with his hands in his pockets and his big boots clattering over the stones, was rolling along in the opposite direction.
“Pat, my boy!” exclaimed the woman in surprise, “wherever did you come from?”
“From the North Sea,” said Pat, looking up at his questioner with an inquiring expression. “I say, old woman, drunk again?”
“Well, boy, who denyses of it?”
“Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“No, I ain’t. Why should I? Who cares whether I’m drunk or sober?”
“Who cares, you unnat’ral old bundle o’ dirty clo’es? Don’t Eve care? An’ don’t Fred Martin an’ Bob Lumpy care? An’ don’t I care, worse than all of ’em put together, except Eve?”
“You, boy?” exclaimed the woman.