“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.