CHAPTER XX. THE DREAMER ON THE REEF
“ I wonder where Paddy is?” cried d**k next morning. He was coming out of the chapparel pulling a dead branch after him. “He’s left his coat on the sand, and the tinder box in it, so I’ll make the fire. There’s no use waiting. I want my breakfast. Bother——”
He trod the dead stick with his n***d feet, breaking it into pieces.
Emmeline sat on the sand and watched him.
Emmeline had two gods of a sort: Paddy Button and d**k. Paddy was almost an esoteric god wrapped in the fumes of tobacco and mystery. The god of rolling ships and creaking masts—the masts and vast sail spaces of the Northumberland were an enduring vision in her mind—the deity who had lifted her from a little boat into this marvellous place, where the birds were coloured and th
