Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/223

THE YELLOW PATCH 197 inside, into like the 'tween decks, for to have a look about him before buying. And there were great bunches of bananas a-ripening against the wall. And sacks of dried raisins, and bags of dried figs, and melon-seeds, and pomegranates enough to sink you. Then there were cotton bales, and calico, and silk of Persia. And rum in puncheons, and bottled ale. And all manner of sweets, and a power of a lot of chemicals. Then there were lamps and candles, and knives and nutmeg- graters. Bowls there were, painted with twisty-twirls. And flutes from the tombs, and whistles that looked like flower- pots. Also fiddles and beautiful melodeons. There were cages full of parrots, both green and grey ; and white cockatoos on perches a-nodding their red crests ; and Java love-birds a-billing, and parakeets a-screaming, and little kittens for the ships with the rats. And last of all there was a little monkey, chained to a sack of jib-hanks, who sat upon his tail a-grinning. That is from A Sailor's Yarn. Its object will be evident. It would do for the special speech of real sailors, with its repetitions, coils, and verbal hitches, its zest in circumstantial recollection, what Synge had been doing for the speech of the Aran islanders. What it was actually on the track of was a new prose rhythm, an absolutely new prose trick — the very technique the artist needed for himself : — He helped her up the mount to the top. She stayed there, holding to a tree, facing to the sun with shut eyes. The sun was dipping now. His red disc was cut across by threads of intense gold cloud. The west was orange. Under the west, the landscape's watery grey was luminous. The hills on the horizon were dim butterfly blue. The three pines on Ponton Wood bronzed and sombred. They were captains there, Roman captains, bloody from the conquest. A few faint clouds rose above the colour of the lowest heaven. Water in the valley gleamed steel. Smoke rose above the village. Woods were dim. The world was unreal with haze. Only in this high place the glow unconquered. It flushed the trees still. They reddened under it. Ponton was an ember glowing. When April was at her loveliest there came a day of rain. The rain filled the little spring at the southern end of the quaiTy.