Katharine Susannah Prichard

“ Sophie had a sensation of hunger satisfied in the life she was leading. Some indefinable hunger of her soul was satisfied by breathing the pure, calm air of the Ridge again, and by feeling her life was going the way the lives of other women on the Ridge were going. She expected her life would go on like this, days and years fall behind her unnoticed; that she and Potch would work together, have children, be splendid friends always, live out their days in the simple, sturdy fashion of Ridge folk, and grow old together. ”

“ But it's no use us thinking we can buy Sophie's experience for her. She's got to live ... and she's got to suffer."
Busy with her opal-cutting, and happy with her thoughts, Sophie had no idea of the misgiving Michael and Maggie Grant had on her account, or that anyone was disturbed and unhappy because of her happiness. She sang as she worked. The whirr of her wheel, the chirr of sandstone and potch as they sheared away, made a small, busy noise, like the drone of an insect, in her house all day; and every day some of the men brought her stones to face and fix up. ”

“ Far from the book having shown him the folly and futility of any attempt against the Money Power, as Dawe Armitage, in a moment of freakish humour had imagined it might, it had filled him with such an intensity of fury that for a moment he believed he alone could accomplish the regeneration of the world; that like St. Michael of old he would go forth and slay the dragon, this chimera which was ravaging the world, drawing the blood, beauty, and joy of youth, the peace and wisdom of age; breaking manhood and womanhood with its merciless claws. ”

“ The Ridge discussed Michael and his new partnership backwards and forth, and back again. Michael knew that, and was as amused as the rest of the Ridge at the company he was keeping. Although he sat with his own mates at midday, he was as often as not with the crowd under Newton's veranda in the evening, discussing and settling the affairs of the Ridge and of the universe. After a while he was more like his old self than he had been for a long time—since Mrs. Rouminof's death—people said, when they saw him going about again with a quiet smile and whimsical twist to his mouth. ”

“ Polly was not as plump and jolly as she had been—a little puzzled and apprehensive expression flitted through her clear brown eyes, and there were lines of discouragement about her mouth. Sophie recognised Mrs. Arthur Henty in a slight, well-dressed woman, whose thin, unwrinkled features wore an expression of more or less matter-of-fact discontent.
The floor was shining under the light of the one big hanging lamp. Paul scraped his violin with a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge loved. ”

“ The days which followed that night when Sophie had dropped the great opal were the happiest Potch had ever known. They were days in which Sophie turned to smile at him when he went into Rouminof's hut; when her eyes lay in his serenely; when he could go to her, and stand near her, inhaling her being, before he stooped to kiss her hair; when she would put back her head so that he might find her lips and take her breath from them in the lingering kiss she gave. ”

“ Watty Frost regard the men's attitude as more than half cussedness, sheer selfishness or stick-in-the-mudness; and the more worthy and respectable they are, the more they fret and fume at the earthen floors and open hearths of the bark and bagging huts they live in, and pine for all the kick-shaws of suburban villas. The discontented women are a minority, nevertheless. Ridge folk as a whole have set their compass and steer the course of their lives with unconscious philosophy, and yet a profound conviction as to the rightness of what they are doing. ”

“ The only way for him to take with his love was the way of faith and service. "To love is to be all made of faith and service." He had taken that for his text for life, and for Sophie. He could be happy holding to it.
Sophie's need of him made Potch happier than he had ever hoped to be; but he could not help believing that the life with her which had etched itself on the horizon of his future would mist away, as the mirages which quiver on the long edges of the plains do, as you approach them. ”

“ All they imagined Michael was suffering in the grief and bitterness of spirit which come of misplaced faith, he was suffering. But they could not imagine the other considerations which had overshadowed grief and bitterness, the realisation that Sophie's life had been saved from what looked like early wreckage, and the consciousness that the consequences of what Charley had done, had fallen, not on Charley, but on himself. Michael had lived like a child, with an open heart at the disposal of his mates always ”

“ Grant, looking from one to the other of them, and to the still figure on the bed, with a dazed, penitent expression....
The horses jogged slowly on the long, winding road. Sophie was conscious of the sunshine, warm and bright, over the plains, the fragrance of paper daisies in the air; the cuckoos calling in the distance. Her father snuffled and wiped his eyes and nose with his new handkerchief as he sat beside her.
"She was so good, Michael," he said, "too good for this world."
Michael did not reply.
"Too good for this world!" Paul murmured again. ”

“ But Snow-Shoes came towards the little crowd beside the tree, singing.
He was the last person to come into the cemetery, and everybody stared at him. An old man in worn white moleskins and cotton shirt, an old white felt hat on his head, the wrappings of bag and leather, which gave him his name, on his feet—although snow never fell on the Ridge—he swung towards them. The flowers he had gathered as he came along, not otilypaper daisies, but the blue flowers of crowsfoot, gold buttons, and creamy and lavender, sweet-scented budda blossoms, were done up in a tight little bunch in his hand. ”

“ She could not believe Michael had ever done anything to merit it. Michael could never be less than Michael to her—the soul of honour, the knight without fear, against whom no reproach could be levelled.
Armitage spoke again.
"You see," he said, "you could still have all those things you spoke of, under my scheme—the long, quiet days; life that is broad and simple; the hearth; home, children—all that sort of thing ... and even time for any of the little social reform schemes you fancied...."
Sophie found herself confronted with the fundamental difference of their outlook again. ”

“ Michael had not seen the curtain over the doorway thrown back in that way since Sophie had gone. The room had always been like a grave in the house with that piece of bagging across it; but there was none of the musty, dusty, grave-like smell of an empty room about it when Michael crossed the threshold. The window was open; the frail odour of a living presence in the air. On the box cupboard by the window a few stalks of punti, withered and dry, stood in a tin. Michael remembered having seen them there when they were fresh, a year ago. ”

“ He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch.
He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and determined to speak.
Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the floor of the mine. ”

“ Michael Brady had stood for it from the earliest days of the settlement. He had pointed out that the only things which could give joy in life, men might have on the Ridge, if they were satisfied to find their joy in these things, and not look for it in enjoyment of the superficial luxuries money could provide. Most of the real sources of joy were every man's inheritance, but conditions of work, which wrung him of energy and spirit, deprived him of leisure to enjoy them until he was too weary to do more than sleep or seek the stimulus of alcohol. ”

“ It was natural enough the boys should like Sophie, that she should like them; he recognised the age-old call of sex in it all. And if Sophie loved and married a man of the Ridge, the future would be clear, Michael thought. He could give Paul the opals, and her husband could watch over Sophie and see no harm came to her if she left the Ridge.
The uneasiness stirred again, though, one afternoon when he found her walking from the tank paddock with Arthur Henty beside her. There was a startled consciousness about them both when Michael joined them and walked along the road with them. ”

“ They had taken into themselves the faint, musky fragrance of the withered herbage and the paper daisies. They had gazed among the stars for hours. When it was time to go home, Sophie sat up.
"I love to lie against the earth like this," she said.
"We seem to get back to the beginning of things. You and I are no more than specks of dust on the plains ... under the skies, Potch ... and yet the whole world is within us...." ”

“ Martha said. "She doesn't want to—but there's something stronger than herself draggin' at her ... it's something that's been in all the women she's come of—the feeling a woman's got for the man who's her mate. Sophie married Potch, it's my belief, to get away from this man. She wanted to chain herself to us and her life here. She wants to stay with us.... She was kept up at first by ideas of duty and sacrifice, and serving something more than her own happiness. But love's like murder, Michael—it must out, and it's a good thing it must...." ”

“ The high tones of a man's voice, eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter of a girl's laughter—they were all in the air now as they had been then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball, and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to them—they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else? Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her? ”

“ Among the men, only the shiftless and more worthless are not in sympathy with Ridge ideas, and talk of money and what money will buy as the things of first value in life. They describe the Fallen Star township as a God-forsaken hole, and promise each other, as soon as their luck has turned, they will leave it for ever, and have the time of their lives in Sydney.
Women like Maggie Grant share their husband's minds. They read what the men read, have the men's vision, and hold it with jealous enthusiasm. ”

“ Ridge folk take the heat as primitive people do most acts of God, as a matter of course, with stiff-lipped hardihood, which makes complaint the manifestation of a poor spirit. They meet their difficulties with a native humour which gives zest to flagging energies. Their houses, with roofs whitened to throw off the heat, the dumps of crumbling white clay, and the iron roofs of the billiard parlour, the hotel, and Watty Frost's new house at the end of the town, shimmer in the intense light. ”

“ They would not rejoice with pagan abandonment in the beauty of those fires in black opal, realising that, like the fires of life, they owed their brilliance, their transcendental glory, to the dark setting. But every day the opals made worshippers of sightseers. They mesmerised beholders who came to look at them.
When the coach rattled to a standstill outside the hotel, Peter Newton went to the door of the bar. He knew John Armitage by the size and shape of his dust-covered overalls. Armitage dismounted and pulled off his gloves. Peter Newton went to meet him. ”

“ She would have been as helpless as any other human consideration against the blinding, irresistibly engulfing forces of despair which had impelled him to put himself out of pain as he had put many a suffering animal. It was an act of self-defence, as Mother M'Cready saw it, Arthur Henty's end, and that was all there was to it.
As Sophie and Potch approached the cemetery, people exclaimed together in wonderment, awe—almost fear.
James Henty, when he saw them, turned away from the men he was talking to and walked to his buggy; Tom Henderson, his son-in-law, followed him. ”

“ This scheme is Mr. John Armitage's idea....
"He's put it to you. You've heard what it is. All I've got to say now is, don't touch it. Don't have anything to do with it.... It'll break us ... the spirit of the men here ... and it'll break what we've been working on all these years. If it means throwing that up, don't let us see which side our bread's buttered on, as Mr. M'Ginnis says. Let us say like we always have—like we've been proud to say: 'We'll eat bread and fat, but we'll be our own masters!'"
"We'll eat bread and fat, but we'll be our own masters!" the men who were with Michael roared. ”

“ Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ... somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal—that I bring people bad luck like opal...."
"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you get through opal is when you can't get enough of it—so the only bad luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of you." ”

“ The cattle browse through them lazily; stringing out across the flowering fields, they look in the distance no more than droves of mice; their red and black backs alone are visible above the herbage. In places, wild candytuft in blossom spreads a quilt of palest lavender in every direction on a wide circling horizon. Darling pea, the colour of violets and smelling like them, threads through the candytuft and lies in wedges, magenta and dark purple against the sky-line, a hundred miles farther on. The sky is a wash of pale, exquisite blue, which deepens as it rises to the zenith. ”