G. B. Lancaster

“ She could yet make real that world which he had lost the right-of-way to years ago. There had been ladies in that world. Clear - eyed, white-souled women to whom a man might fitly render love—but not the love which these feverish years had bought and sold; not the women which they had flung along the edges of his life.
North's face had darkened, and the lines around his mouth were harsher with his thoughts when at last he thrust pot and brushes into the locker and rubbed the tar from his hands with some blue-gum shavings from the bench. ”

“ The sea had turned to molten copper, and every ragged frond of the Bangalo palms, every loop of the mangrove roots stood livid and distinct in the angry yellow light that swept the foreshore. The prickling sense of coming storm was in the motionless air where sea-birds were flying low and the tide made little uneasy moans. By the split-rail fence confining the larger elements of Flannigan's dust-heap, North stopped suddenly.
"You'd best wait till to-morrow," he said. "There is every sign of a bad storm."
"I can be back in half an hour." She glanced at the sky. ”

“ North felt as a man may who walks with held breath and careful feet through the glowing tissues of a dream which a blundering movement may tear into ruin on the instant, as an animal tears a spider-web. It could not come again, this new buoyancy and eager life which she had given him for the hour. ”

“ The thought of the child, the uncared-for girl-child filled her soul up.
"She's asleep in the next room," said North at her elbow. "I'll bring her."
"Don't wake her." She was enraged at his thoughtlessness. "I will go in."
"She will have to be waked if you want to see her." Again that curious, intent look of his brushed across her, and again she did not notice it. "But you can go in if you like."
He took the candle along to the inner room, halting by the rough cot beyond the stretcher-bed, and shading the light with his hand as he looked down. ”

“ That subtle command which a woman wields in the flicker of an eyelash, the scent of hair and garments, the serene knowledge of her right to supremacy. It was long since North had been handled by such delicate weapons, and their power was the greater in consequence.
"I—can't say just now what I mean to do," he said, with hesitation. "If you'd like to see her to-night, I'm going home now. There's no one but a Chinaman up at the humpy, though." ”

“ And then, when the white steamer was hull down on the broad blue of the silken sea, he sought Flannigan and found him lolling in the sun at the bar-door; and Meg, with her handsome, impudent face and bold eyes, was beside him.
"Know any one who wants to take over my job, Flannigan?" said North, standing in the street with hands in pockets and hat pulled down over his brows. "I'm going back to the pearling with Bayne of the Catapult. He's always asking me." ”

“ The rough give-and-take of life, the lawless nights and fiercer days, the idleness when the croon of the sea lulls the body and fills the soul with its eternal unrest, had seared him—given him the calloused mind and the Ishmael desires. But that girl-child who was his own could play on his fibers yet. ”

“ North stood up suddenly, and Birkett might have learned several things if he had seen his face and eyes. But he was polishing a button with his handkerchief and whistling underbreath.
"What did she say—the widow?"
"Eh? What's the matter?" Birkett looked up, startled. "Yes, she's coming to see you in the morning. We don't pull out till dusk." He got to his feet, and settled his cap. "Now, you take my tip and close with her, North. You won't get a chance like this again, and that kid's keeping you tied all the time. She's a real lady, I tell you. Money's like dirt to her. You do it, old man. ”

“ She was cook and bottle-washer at a little shanty pub in a bush township near the Gulf. I was pearling round that way then. She had never been away from the place, and she could barely sign her name. But she was rather pretty—pretty as girls go in those parts. We learn not to be too particular.
"Is that how you men talk of the women you have loved?"
North's laugh was not pleasant to hear. "I never said I loved her, did I? But I wanted something to tie up to. I wanted a humpy of my own and a wife of my own to come back to when we made port. Most men do, some time or other. ”

“ If she turns out like Flannigan's Meg or Wild Honey—"
"I won't lay it up to you, Birkett."
A more sensitive man would have been warned by the tone. Birkett rubbed his knees with slow, moist palms. "We-ell, she might, y' know. These coast-townships are the very devil and all. She'll be pretty, too. Now, look here. What I came to say is—if you're still wantin' to get rid o' her I know some one who'll take her off your hands."
North had exchanged the tar-brush for the putty-knife. ”

“ The man scarcely touched the surface of her thoughts. He was merely here to sell her something which all the motherhood in her desired to have—had been determined to have ever since Birkett showed her that baby face in the photograph and told her that he guessed North would part with for a few pounds. "She's keepin' him tied, and he's a fellow who likes slingin' loose, y' know." ”