Good Night (Buenas Noches)

Ii

High at the garden's centre, nailed to a massive tree of wood, stood out the Sacrifice. From behind, fir and pine thrust their long green boughs, as if eager to screen that torn and unclad shape. From below, jasmine and geranium, carnation and rose, sent upward an unfailing incense.

That way, in the heat of mid-afternoon, came Padre Anzar. Thin-lipped he was, and hollow-eyed. In one hand he held a trowel, in the other a knife. Down the front of his brown cassock, mingling at knee height with red brick-stains from the chapel floor, were touches of fresh earth. Anzar the priest was for the moment Anzar the gardener.

He walked slowly, here stooping to right a stalk or jerk a weed, there stretching to pick a fading orange leaf from where it marred the glaucous sheen of its fellows. Fronting the figure, he paused long enough to whisper a prayer and make the holy sign. Then he rambled on, busy with trowel and blade.

But presently he came to a full and startled halt. He was beside the trellis up which climbed his treasured fuchsia. The cross-like perch of the parrot was beyond the bordering cacti, and unoccupied. Near by, upon its nail, hung the canary cage, with Tony going up stairs and down untiringly, eying his visitor with no uneasiness, greeting him, on the contrary, with saucy chirps. While underneath, spotting the ground in some profusion, and cast as it were at the feet of the garden's singer, were scores of scarlet blossoms!

The padre's look travelled from the scattered flowers to the vacant perch, from the perch to the naked branches swaying against the trellis, from the branches to the wide, warm top of the 'dobe wall. And there was Loretta, patrolling in unconcealed apprehension.

The instant he caught sight of her he knew her guilt. He pursed his thin lips. Then, letting fall trowel and knife, he straddled the hedge.

"I'll wring thy neck for thee!" he vowed.

A sandal in the trellis, a light spring, and his head came even with her. She backed away, raising her wings a little, and gawking in protest. He took a fresh grip on the wall, reached out and caught her like a chicken--by both legs.

Wild screeches rang through the garden, screeches that put the sparrows to flight and set the canary cheeping in fear. These were punctuated next by raucous appeals for "_Tony_" or gurgley parrot language.

The padre was down now, and standing on the path again. But he was not fulfilling his threat. Instead, he was viewing his captive angrily, yet in considerable indecision.

Loretta, on the other hand, was at no loss for a course of action. Between cries for the canary, demands for a handshake, and reiterated "_Good-days_," she was vigorously trying her beak upon the padre's fist.

But now a new factor upon the scene. Round the mission wall, waddling fast and propelling himself by his swinging arms, appeared Padre Alonzo. "Is't the cats?" he asked as he came on; "oh, la! la! is't the cats?"

Padre Anzar half turned, scowling. For answer, he only pointed to the severed fuchsias.

The other looked, covering any regret with simulated astonishment. "These were dropping of themselves yesterday," he began between breaths. "They--they fell fast in the night--eh?" He came beside the other now, partly to support the suspended Loretta in his hands. "I saw them--truly."

"Bah!" And Padre Anzar gave Loretta such a shake that she tumbled, squawking and sputtering, from the other's hands, and again hung, heels above head, like a chicken caught for the block.

"She did but what the wind hadst done," faltered Padre Alonzo. "Sst! sst!" (This to the parrot.) "Such language from a lady!"

"Ah-_ha_!" grunted Padre Anzar, "I told thee not to buy a bird that was raised in a garrison town."

"_To-o-ny! To-o-ny!_" pleaded the parrot. "_A-aw, To-o-ny!_"

"Yes," he went on solemnly, addressing her, "and thou art of the devil, and hast as many tricks. Twice I forgave thee--once for shouting 'Fire!' on St. John's Day, as the censer passed; again, for pulling the feathers out of Señor Esteban's choice hen. But thou wilt not escape now. Now thou'lt go to the kitchen and be shut in with Gabrielda's black mouser. There thou shalt shed some quills."

With this dire threat, he departed along the path, Loretta still hanging head down at his knee.

Scarcely a moment later a commotion sounded from the distance, a commotion muffled by 'dobe wall. First came the voice of old Gabrielda, then the clatter of an over-turning pan, next the terror-stricken shrieks of Loretta. Presently, Padre Anzar appeared, his jaw set, his eyes shining with the look of duty done.

"She will be nicely scared this time," he told Padre Alonzo. "She will match her busy peak with Tomasso's claws, and she will remember hereafter to let my blossoms alone."