Patsy Kernaghan regarded Tralee as a kind of Lost Paradise, for the
most part because it had passed from the hands of a son of the Catholic
Church into those of the “prayin’ Methodys,” as he called them, and also
because he had a “black heart ag’in” Joel Mazarine.
The spark was struck in him with some vigour one day at Tralee. It was
caused by the flamboyant entrance of Mrs. Guise into the front garden,
as the Young Doctor was getting into his buggy for the return journey
to Askatoon, after attending Orlando, whose enforced visit to Tralee had
already extended over a week.
“Aw, Doctor dear,” said Patsy, as Orlando’s mother fluttered into the
garden like a gorgeous hen with wings outspread, her clothes a riot of
contradictory colours, all of them insistently bright, “d’ye know what
this place is--this terry firmy on which we stand, that’s wan mile wan
way, an’ half a mile the other? Ye don’t? Well, I’ll tell ye: it’s
a zoolyogical gardin. Is it like a human bein’ she is, the dear ould
wumman there? Isn’t she just some gay ould bird from the forests of
the Equaytor, wherivir it is? Look at the beautiful little white curls
hanging down her cheek, tied with ribbon-pink ribbon too--an’ the bonnet
on her head! Did ye iver see anything like it outside a zoolyogical
gardin? Isn’t it like the topknot of some fine old parakeet from
Pernambukoko--and oh, Father Rainbow, the maginta dress of her! Now
I tell you, Doctor dear, I tell you the truth, what I know! She wears
hoops, she does, the same as y’r grandmother used to. An’ the bit of
rose ribbon round her waist, hanging down behind--now I ask y’r anner,
is it like a wumman at all? See the face of her, with the little
snappin’ eyes an’ the yellow beak of a nose, an’ the sunset in her
cheeks that’s put on wid a painter’s brush! Look at her trippin’ about!
Floatin’--shure, that’s what she’s doin’! If you listened hard, you’d
hear her buzzin’. It’s the truth I tell ye. D’ye follow me?”
The Young Doctor liked talking to Patsy Kernaghan better than to any
other person in Askatoon. He was always sure to be stimulated by a new
point of view, but he never failed to provoke Kernaghan by scepticism.
“One wild bird from ‘Pernambukoko’ does not make a zoological garden,
Patsy,” he said with an air of dissent.
“Well, that’s true for you, Doctor dear,” answered Kernaghan, “but this
gardin’s got a bunch of specimens for all that. Listen to me now. Did ye
ever notice the likeness between the faces of people and of animals an’
things that fly? You never did? Well, be thinkin’ of it now. Ivry
man and wumman here at Tralee looks like an animal or a bird in a
zoolyogical gardin. Shure, there’s no likeness between anny two of
them; it’s as if they was gathered from ivry corner of the wide wurruld.
There’s a Mongolian in the kitchen an’ slitherin’ about outside, doin’
the things that’s part for man and part for wumman. Li Choo they call
him. Isn’t his the face of a bald-headed baboon? An’ the half-breed
crature--she might ha’ come from Patagony. An’ the ould man
Mazarine--part rhinoceros and part Methody, he is. An’ what do ye be
thinkin’ of him they call Giggles, that almost guv his life to save
the ould behemoth! Doesn’t he remind you of the zebra, where the wild
Hottentots come from--smart and handsome, but that showy, all stripes
and tail and fetlock! D’ye unnerstand what I mean, y’r anner?”
“Have you finished calling names, Kernaghan?” asked the Young Doctor in
a low tone. “Have you really finished your zoological list?”
Kernaghan’s eye flashed. “Aw, Doctor dear,” said he, “manny’s the time
in County Inniskillen, where you come from, you’ve seen a wild thing,
bare-footed, springin’ from stone to stone on the hillside, wid her
hair flyin’ behind like the daughter of a witch or somethin’ only half
human-so belongin’ to the hills an’ the bogs an’ the cromlechs was she.
Well, that’s the maid that’s mistress of Tralee--belongin’ as much to
the Gardin of Eden as to this place here. There’s none of them here that
belongs. Every wan of them’s been caught away from where he ought to be
into this zoolyogical gardin.”
“Well, there’s one good thing about a zoological garden, Patsy
Kernaghan,” said the Young Doctor; “it’s generally a safe place for the
birds and animals in it.”
“But suppose some wan--suppose, now, the Keeper got drunk and let loose
the popylashin’ of the gardin upon each other, d’ye think would it be a
Gardin of Eden?” Suddenly Patsy’s manner changed. “Aw, I tell you this,
then: I don’t like what I see here, an’ I like it less an’ less ivry
day.”
“What don’t you like, Patsy?” asked the other quizzically.
“I don’t like the way the old fella watches that child he calls his
wife. I don’t like the young fella bein’ the cause of the old man’s
watchin’.”
“What has happened? What has he done?” asked the Young Doctor a little
anxiously.
“Divils me own, it isn’t what he’s done; it’s his bein’ here. It’s his
bein’ what he is. It doesn’t need doin’ to bring wild youth together.
Look at her, y’r anner! A week ago she was like wan that ‘d be called to
the Land of Canaan anny minnit. Wasn’t you here tendin’ her, as if she
was steppin’ intil her grave, an’ look at her now! She’s like a rose in
the garden, like a lark’s lilt in the air. What has done it? The young
man’s done it. You’ll be tellin’ the ould fella it’s the tonic you’ve
guv her. Tonic! How long d’ye think he’ll belave it?’
“But she never sees Mr. Guise, does she, Patsy? Isn’t his mother always
with him? Hasn’t Mazarine forbidden his wife to enter the room?”
Kernaghan threw out his hands. “An’ you’re the man they say’s the
cleverest steppin’ between Winnipeg and the Mountains--an’--an’--you
talk to me like that! Is the ould fella always in the house? Is he
always upstairs? I ask you now. I’ll tell you this, y’r anner--”
The Young Doctor interrupted him. “Don’t you suppose that there’s
somebody always watching, Patsy--the half-breed, the Chinaman?”
Kernaghan snapped a finger. “Aw, must I be y’r schoolmaster in the days
of your dotage! Of course the ould fella has someone to watch, an’ I
dunno which it is--the Chinaman or the half-breed wumman. But I’ll tell
you this: they’ll take his pay and lie to him about whatever’s goin’ on
inside the house. That girl has them both in the palms of her hands. Let
him set what spies he will, she’ll do what she wants, if the young man
lets her.”
“His mother--” interjected the Young Doctor. “Her of the plumage--her!
Shure, she’s not livin’ in this wurruld. She’s only visitin’ it. She’s
got no responsibility. If iver there was a child of a fairy tale, that
wumman’s the child. I belave she’d think her son was doin’ right if he
tied the ould fella up to a tree an’ stuck him as full of Ingin arrows
as a pin-cushion, an’ rode off with the lovely little lady in beyant
there. That’s my mind about her. It isn’t on her you can rely. If ye
want the truth, y’r anner, them two young people have had words together
and plenty of them, whether it’s across the hall--her room from his;
or in his room; or through the windy or down the chimney-shure, I don’t
care! They’ve spoke. There’s that between them wants watchin’. Not that
there’s wrong in aither of them--divil a bit! I’ve got me own mind about
Mr. Orlando Giggles. As for her, the purty thing, she doesn’t know what
wrong is--that’s the worst of it!”
The Young Doctor tapped Kernaghan’s head gently with his whip. “Patsy,”
said he, “you talk a lot. There’s no greater talker between here and
Donegal. But still I think you know what to say and whom to say it to.”
Kernaghan’s cap came off. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked
at the other with a primitive intelligence which showed him to be what
the Young Doctor knew him to be--better than his looks, or his place in
the world, or his reputation.
“Thank you kindly, y’r anner,” he said, softly. “I’m troubled about
things here, I am. That’s why I spoke to ye. I’m afraid of the old
fella, for his place is not in the pen wid that young thing, an’ he’ll
break her heart, or kill her, if he gets to know the truth.”
“What do you mean by ‘the truth,’ Patsy?” was the sharp query.
“I mean nothin’ at all, save that in there wild youth is spakin’ to wild
youth--honest and dacint and true. But there’s manny a tragedy comes out
of that, y’r anner.”
“Orlando has been sitting up for two days,” said the Young Doctor
meditatively, “and in two days more he can be removed. Patsy, you are
staying on here.--I know, and I trust you. The girl and the young man
have both been my patients. I think as much of both of them as I can
think of any man or woman. He’s straight and--”
“But a girl’s mad when the love-song rises in her heart,” interjected
Kernaghan.
“Yes, I know, Patsy, but it isn’t so bad as you think. I had a talk
with her to-day. Perhaps we can get him away to-morrow. Meanwhile, there
can’t much happen.”
“Can’t much happen, wid that ould wuman in the garden there, an’ the
young wife upstairs, an’ the fine young fella sittin’ alone in his
room achin’ for the sound of her voice! Shure, they’re together at this
minnit, p’r’aps.”
The Young Doctor tapped Kernaghan again on the head with his whip.
“You’re a wild Irishman still,” he said, “but I think none the worse of
you for that. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. Keep your head,
Patsy.” And whipping up his horse, he nodded and drove on.
It may be that Kernaghan’s instinct was no truer than his own. It may be
the Young Doctor knew Kernaghan’s instinct to be true; and it also
may be that what Kernaghan thought possible, the Young Doctor thought
possible; but he also felt that things must be as they must be.
In any case Kernaghan was right; for while the little flamboyant lady
from Slow Down Ranch was busy in the front garden, Louise Mazarine was
with her wounded guest, with the man who had saved her husband’s money
and perhaps his life. The wounded guest regarded his wound as a blessing
almost. Perhaps that was why he did not notice that his host had only
been silently grateful.