Kilgariff

“ Unhappy indeed is the man who is confronted with a divided duty, a problem of right and wrong which he feels himself powerless to solve. In that hour Owen Kilgariff was more acutely unhappy than he had ever been, even in the darkest period of his great calamity.
Presently Evelyn returned to the porch and seated herself, quite as if nothing had occurred out of the commonplace. ”

“ From this hour I shall regard you as Captain Kilgariff; and when I get myself into communication with General Lee or the war [175] department, I’ll see that the title is made good.”
“Thank you, General,” answered Kilgariff. “But I sincerely wish you wouldn’t. I have already received and rejected one commission as captain, and I have declined a still higher rank offered me.”
“What an idiot you must be!” squeaked Early in his peculiar, falsetto voice. “But you know how to fight your guns, and I’ve got a use for such men as you are. ”

“ Captain Pollard had but one commissioned officer with him on this dare-devil expedition, and that one officer was shot in the first skirmish, so that Owen Kilgariff, non-commissioned officer that he was, was second in command of the battery.
Early’s column swept like a hurricane down the valley, and like a cyclone burst upon Maryland and Pennsylvania. It marched fearlessly wherever it pleased and fought tremendously wherever it encountered a foe. ”

“ WHEN Kilgariff asked Evelyn to go with him to the front porch, telling her he had an important matter to discuss with her, she showed a momentary embarrassment. She quickly controlled it, but not so quickly that it escaped her companion’s recognition. ”

“ If I interpret the matter aright, Kilgariff is simply morbid, and if you can induce him to take the place you have pressed upon him, you will have cured him of his morbidity of mind. And I think you can do that. You know how I contemn the duello, and fortunately it seems passing out of use. In these war times, when every man stands up every day to be shot at by hundreds of men who are not scared, it would be ridiculous for any man to stand up and let one scared man shoot at him, in the hope of demonstrating his courage in that fashion. ”

“ With what seemed to Captain Pollard incredible quickness, Kilgariff amputated the arm above the wrist, took up the arteries, and neatly bandaged the wound. Then he bade some of the men bear the patient on a litter to his hut, and place him in his bunk. He remained by the poor fellow’s side until the effects of shock and chloroform had subsided. ”

“ These details in no way disturbed the battery camp. They were the commonplaces of war; so the men, unmindful of them, cooked such dinner as they could command, and ate it with a relish unimpaired by the events of the morning.
But Captain Marshall Pollard and his companion, Sergeant-major Owen Kilgariff, were not minded for dinner. Seeing the flames burst forth from the upper stories of the old colonial mansion, Kilgariff said to his captain:—
“I wonder if all those fellows got away? There may be a wounded man or two left in the house to roast to death. ”

“ Evelyn responded to the summons, and these two were made one upon the battlefield, with bullets flying about their heads and rifle shells applauding.
The ceremony ended, Evelyn rode away to Wyanoke to await the end. A week later Owen Kilgariff joined her there.
“We are beginning life anew,” he said, “and together.” ”

“ Then, calling to the negro boy, who had already started on his errand, she bade him:—
“Bring a horse for Colonel Kilgariff; not his own, but some other.” This was the first time Evelyn had ever called Kilgariff by any military title. “You see, Colonel, your splendid animal has been badly overworked and underfed. I have promised him a restful morning in a [290] clover field, and it would be too bad to disappoint him, don’t you think?”
“Yes, certainly. Thank you for thinking of that. How completely you seem to have schooled yourself to think of dumb animals as if they were human beings! ”

“ Listen to me, Owen Kilgariff. You have brooded over the unfortunate circumstances of your life until you have grown morbid, particularly since this wound has been sapping your vitality. You must brace yourself up and take [297] a healthier view of things. If you don’t, I shall make you. Here you are imagining yourself disgraced at the very time when others in high places are pressing honours upon you as the well-earned reward of your superb conduct. ”

“ The fact of Stuart’s death peculiarly embarrassed a man of Kilgariff’s almost boyish sensitiveness.
I feel [he wrote to Arthur Brent] as if I were disobeying Stuart’s commands and disregarding his dying request, in still refusing to reconsider my decision. Yet I feel that I must do so in spite of the decision of your court of honour, in spite of your friendly insistence, in spite of everything. After all, [120] Arthur, a man must be judge in his own case, when his honour is involved. The most that others can do—the most even that a court of honour can do—is to excuse, to pardon, to permit. ”

“ Still, Pollard had something to say to his sergeant-major on this occasion, and presently he said it:—
“I did not know until yesterday,” he began, “that you were a surgeon, Kilgariff.”
“Perhaps I should not call myself that,” interrupted the man, as if anxious to forestall the captain’s thought. “One who has knocked about the world as much as I have naturally picks up a good many bits of useful information—especially with regard to the emergency care of men who get themselves hurt.” ”

“ The shells from their own side of the line, shrieking above the heads of the three fugitives, made their horses squat almost to the ground; but with a resolution born of long familiarity with danger, the two soldiers sped on, Kilgariff carrying the girl on the withers of his horse and trying to shield her from the fire of the sharp-shooters by so riding as to interpose his own body between her and the swiftly on-coming bullets. ”

“ Arthur Brent was at Wyanoke when this letter came, but he hastened to Petersburg to execute his friend’s commission. He told more of Kilgariff’s personal history than Kilgariff had suggested. That is to say, he told of his gallantry at Spottsylvania and of its mention in general orders. He had neither to urge nor beseech. No sooner was the chief of artillery made aware of the facts than he answered:—
“I want such a man badly. ”

“ For a moment Kilgariff regarded the fellow with indignant contempt. Then the indignation passed, and the contempt was intensified in his expression. Presently he said:—
“You low-lived, contemptible hound, I can’t make up my mind even to be angry with you. You and your kind are the pest in this war. You haven’t character enough to take sides. You [180] serve either side at will, and betray both with jaunty indifference. Now listen to me. Within twenty-four hours I shall see Major Campbell, who sent me this note. But I shall not go to him under the safe-conduct you have brought.” ”

“ But I see another danger. Suppose anything should happen to Dorothy?—God forbid it! Suppose she should die?”
“I have thought of all that,” answered Kilgariff, “and I think I see a way out. I shall ask Dorothy to select some friend, some woman whom she can absolutely trust, to serve with her as a joint trustee, giving full power to the survivor to carry out the trust in case of the death of either of the two. I haven’t a doubt she knows such a woman.”
“She does—two of them. There is Edmonia Bannister, one of God’s elect in character, and there is Mrs. Baillie Pegram—she who was Agatha Ronald. ”

“ Evelyn’s return to Wyanoke, Dorothy received a second note from Edmonia, saying:—
I don’t know whether we have done wisely or otherwise. For once Evelyn is inscrutable. We have told her of Kilgariff’s splendid generosity, and we can’t make out how she takes it. She has grown very silent and somewhat nervous. She is under a severe emotional strain of some kind, but of what kind we do not know. A storm of some sort is brewing, and we must simply wait to learn what its character is to be. ”

“ But even on horseback Pollard found it difficult to approach this man upon any subject that seemed in the least degree personal. It was not that there was anything repellent, anything combative, and still less anything pugnacious in Kilgariff’s manner; for there was never anything of the sort. It was only that the man was so full of a gentle dignity, so saturated with that reserve which a gentleman instinctively feels concerning his own affairs that no other gentleman wishes to intrude upon them. ”

“ Kilgariff fully realised the desperate character of the attempt, and the practical certainty that his guns, his men, and his horses would be quickly swept off the face of the earth when he should appear upon that shell-furrowed hilltop. But he had no thought of faltering. On the contrary, just as he gave the order, “Forward,” a whimsical thought occurred to him. “The general need not have been at the trouble to order us to ‘stay there.’ We’ll stay there, whether we wish to or not. The enemy will take care of that.” ”

“ Perhaps it may not have been true.”
“You must tell me that, or you must tell me nothing!” exclaimed the girl, rising in a passion of excitement, and speaking as if utterance involved painful effort. “Understand me, Colonel Kilgariff. I am not a child, whose feelings must be spared by reservations and concealments. I have not been much used to that sort of coddling, and I will not submit to it. My life has been such as to teach me how to endure. ”

“ XXIX EVELYN’S VIGIL
EVELYN BYRD’S exceeding truthfulness of mind and soul made her a transparent person for loving eyes to look through, and Edmonia Bannister’s eyes were very loving ones for her.
When she went to Branton for her ten days’ visit, Evelyn herself scarcely knew why she wished thus to separate herself from Kilgariff; but she went with a subconscious determination to avoid all mention of his name. She could hardly have adopted a surer means of revealing her state of mind to so wise and so experienced a woman as Edmonia. ”

“ And above all you must tell me the moment you discover in her any shadow or trace of that reserve toward me which might mean or suggest a dawning of love. I shall be constantly on the lookout for such signs, but you, with your woman’s wit and intuitions, may be quicker than I to see.”
“Precisely what do you mean, Kilgariff?” Dorothy asked, in her frank way of going directly to the marrow of every matter with which she had occasion to deal. “You say you are in love with Evelyn. Do you not wish her to be in love with you?” ”

“ It was equally impossible to turn Dorothy by so much as a hair’s breadth away from the truth she sought. Gentle as she was, forbearing as it was her nature to be, she was utterly uncompromising in her love of truth. Moreover, in this case she was disposed to be the more merciless in her insistence upon the truth for the reason that Kilgariff had blunderingly offended the dignity of her womanhood. She held his assumption concerning Evelyn’s [324] state of mind and heart to be an affront to her sex, and she was not minded to let it pass without atonement. ”

“ Nations are only aggregations of individuals, and their rights are only the sum of the rights previously possessed by the individuals composing them. But while I feel in that way about duelling, I can have no part in a contest in which I know in advance that one of the contestants is going to shoot to kill, while the other is merely standing up to be shot at and does not himself intend to make war at all.”
“Very well,” answered Kilgariff. ”

“ The girl rode her everywhere, teaching her a number of pretty tricks, the most astonishing of which was the art of lifting a gate latch with her teeth, and letting herself and her rider through the many barriers that Virginian law accommodatingly permitted planters to erect across the public roads.
“But how did you learn all this?” asked Kilgariff, full of interest.
“Oh, I do not know. I reckon I never learned it at all. You see, the animals fight us only because they think we mean to fight them. So long as they are afraid of us, they fight, of course. ”

“ It was deemed the grossest of offences to call in question the conduct of a man [72] who acted in accordance with the finding of a court of honour.
Now why cannot you call a court of honour to sit upon this case? Without revealing Kilgariff’s identity—which of course you could not do except by his permission—you could lay before the court a succinct but complete statement of the case, and ask it to decide whether or not the man concerned can, with honour, accept a commission in the service without making the facts public. ”

“ But what is best? If these papers reveal to her the cruel fact that her father was an adventurer, a gambler, a swindler—and they must if they reveal anything—will it not be a great wrong to let her have them at all? And yet who but herself has a right to decide that she shall not receive whatever revelation the documents may make?”
[214]
Then it was that the thought came to Kilgariff which made him sit up suddenly.
“She is the daughter of that man. Is there not in that fact an offset to my disability? ”

“ I have no right to ask so great a sacrifice at your hands. I ask only that you shall permit me to regard you as the woman I love, the woman I should have sought to make my wife if I had been worthy. I ask your permission so to arrange my affairs, or so to leave [430] them as already arranged, that at my death all that I have will pass into your hands. You can never know or dream or imagine how I love you, Evelyn. Surely it is only a little thing that I ask of you.”
As he delivered this passionate utterance, Kilgariff threw his arm around the girl’s waist, and for a moment held her closely. ”