Wild Youth

Chapter 7

"THE ZOOLYOGICAL GARDEN"

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 annything 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 c******n?"

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 c******n 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.