"No, but I met Scroggie. That feller improves on acquaintance, Tom, he does so! He ain't half bad after you get to know him. He seems to want to be neighborly, and while I think he's backing Hinter in some way I've an idea he's watching him pretty close.",
The scene of the quay-side was gay and indeed festive. The few ships had hoisted colours in celebration of the Aurora's arrival, and the large flags of those days streaming from mast-head and gaff-end and ensign-staff and jack-staff combined with the brilliant blue of the sky, the light and lovely greenery of spring that clothed the ravine's slopes, the sober hue of the cliffs, the white shape of the squab lighthouse past which some gulls[Pg 90] were wheeling, the chocolate tint of the revolving windmill, the sober grey of the houses and the diamond sparkle of the river with its softened reflection of bridge and banks streaming into its heart in dreamlike shadow of what was mirrored: this combination, I say, coupled with the motions and colours of human life on the quay-side, albeit the beer hour had struck and the picture owed nothing of animation to the workmen, fascinated the eye with the calm, the freshness, and the glory of a little English sea-piece, Sabbath-like in repose, lighted by the sun of April beaming in a perfectly fair heaven.,
He glanced in the opposite direction to the blue smoke rising above the Wilson cedars. Then, as he prepared to climb down, he apparently changed his mind, for instead of taking the path to Tom Wilson's he walked briskly down toward the walled in derrick. Reaching it he paused and an exclamation of surprise escaped him. On the door of the wall an iron padlock had been fastened. There was no sign of human life about the place but within the walls could be heard the fierce growling of dogs. Ringold backed away and eyed the tall derrick. There was mystery here and he didn't relish mysteries. And there was a pungent, salty smell about the place—the smell that oily machinery gives off when put under intense heat..
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