Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/18

6 caught a glimpse of the old glory that sometimes lingered around the port when the last of the "square-riggers" came home. That morning, the North Star had stalked into the harbour like a white ghost of the old days. They were alternately watching her "standing to" out in the harbour, and a queer-hatted fellow who was sitting before a tripod, making odd passes with a brush and meticulous pats with his thumb—incomprehensible way of making a living.

"Chunks of atmosphere, gobs of it," he murmured, raising his eyes from the bedaubed lily-pad board to the stertorous little tug, pushing and shoving and boosting the tall bark between the wharves. "Good Lord! if I could only get that smell of brine and bilge-water, the swish o' that cutwater, rattle o' block and tackle, shuffle o' feet, creak o' winch, and the crunch of her sides against the straining piles—it all ought to go in—not a discord, just close-shaved harmony, like Rachmaninoff—but you can't put it down in colour.

"'A thing of beauty'," he hummed, then outlined something rapidly on the canvas, not the tall beauty of trim spars but another in the line of his vision—seated on an upturned cask. "H'm! good line there," and he sketched in the middy, navy blue, and the skirt—even in the breeze it billowed modestly. "Didn't believe they ever cut 'em that way—good lines under it, too,—ankles, like the wrists, a bit sharply-boned but all right—thoroughbred, in fact—and a sapling figure" (she had risen from the cask as the snorting tug backed water) "but strong, perfect co-ordination. Can't get that wave in the black thatch, though—sort of a sea marcel."