Part 3 (1/2)
There sat Mr. Bilkins, with his wig pushed back from his forehead, and his eyes fixed vacantly on The Weekly Chronicle, which he held out at arm's length before him.
”Good heavens, Ezra! what _is_ the matter?”
Mr. Bilkins turned his eyes upon her mechanically, as if he were a great wax-doll, and somebody had pulled his wire.
”Can't you speak, Ezra?”
His lips opened, and moved inarticulately; then he pointed a rigid finger, in the manner of a guide-board, at a paragraph in the paper, which he held up for Mrs. Bilkins to read over his shoulder. When she had read it she sunk back into her chair without a word, and the two sat contemplating each other as if they had never met before in this world, and were not overpleased at meeting.
The paragraph which produced this singular effect on the aged couple occurred at the end of a column of telegraph despatches giving the details of an unimportant engagement that had just taken place between one of the blockading squadron and a Confederate cruiser. The engagement itself does not concern us, but this item from the list of casualties on the Union side has a direct bearing on our narrative:--
”_Larry O'Rourke, seaman, splinter wound in the leg.
Not serious_.”
That splinter flew far. It glanced from Mr. O'Rourke's leg, went plumb through the Bilkins mansion, and knocked over a small marble slab in the Old South Burying Ground.
If a ghost had dropped in familiarly to breakfast, the constraint and consternation of the Bilkins family could not have been greater. How was the astounding intelligence to be broken to Margaret? Her explosive Irish nature made the task one of extreme delicacy. Mrs. Bilkins flatly declared herself incapable of undertaking it. Mr. Bilkins, with many misgivings as to his fitness, a.s.sumed the duty; for it would never do to have the news sprung suddenly upon Margaret by people outside.
As Mrs. O'Rourke was clearing away the breakfast things, Mr. Bilkins, who had lingered near the window with the newspaper in his hand, coughed once or twice in an unnatural way to show that he was not embarra.s.sed, and began to think that may be it would be best to tell Margaret after dinner. Mrs. Bilkins fathomed his thought with that intuition which renders women terrible, and sent across the room an eye-telegram to this effect, ”Now is your time.”
”There 's been another battle down South, Margaret,” said the old gentleman presently, folding up the paper and putting it in his pocket.
”A sea-fight this time.”
”Sure, an' they 're allus fightin' down there.”
”But not always with so little damage. There was only one man wounded on our side.”
”Pore man! It's sorry we oughter be for his wife an' childer, if he's got any.”
”Not badly wounded, you will understand, Margaret--not at all seriously wounded; only a splinter in the leg.”
”Faith, thin, a splinter in the leg is no pleasant thing in itself.”
”A mere scratch,” said Mr. Bilkins lightly, as if he were constantly in the habit of going about with a splinter in his own leg, and found it rather agreeable. ”The odd part of the matter is the man's first name.
His first name was Larry.”
Margaret nodded, as one should say, There's a many Larrys in the world.
”But the oddest part of it,” continued Mr. Bilkins, in a carelessly sepulchral voice, ”is the man's last name.”
Something in the tone of his voice made Margaret look at him, and something in the expression of his face caused the blood to fly from Margaret's cheek.
”The man's last name!” she repeated, wonderingly.
”Yes, his last name--O'Rourke.”
”D'ye mane it?” shrieked Margaret--”d' ye mane it? Glory to G.o.d! O worra! worra!”
”Well, Ezra,” said Mrs. Bilking, in one of those spasms of base ingrat.i.tude to which even the most perfect women are liable, ”you 've made nice work of it. You might as well have knocked her down with an axe!”