"Not a bit. But let's do a bit more—Jerry calls it scene-shifting."
She tossed the last piece of cake to an inquisitive kookaburra who had been watching the meal optimistically, with bright eyes and nodding head. It was a triumph, this cake—in several ways. The stationmaster at Cook's Wall had built his "bosker hotel" at last, and had made it a store at which one could buy fruit, jam, sugar and various luxuries. Louis had been in twice to the store lately, and had actually remembered the seed-cake on the Oriana when he saw caraway seeds in the store. He volunteered the information that there was whisky for sale at the store, but did not mention whether he had wanted to buy it or not.
He got up, taking the mattock. Marcella began to fight a great stem running along the ground.
"Devilish stuff," he said, turning back to look at her. "See that little patch over there?"
She nodded, following his eyes. A brisk little gorse bush was bursting from the ground. A few feet away another was keeping it company.
"Devilish stuff!" he repeated. "Just like a cancer—in pathology. You chop the damned thing out, root and branch, and there it pops out again, miles away from where it started. Look at that piece there."
He attacked the little plant with rather unnecessary severity and dug up a thin, tough, cord-like root which he threw on the fire savagely.
"Louis, do you remember that schoolmaster on the Oriana?" she asked suddenly, staring thoughtfully at the long, thin leaders.
"Oh, that ass who sat in my chair? Yes. Why?"
"He told me a fearful thing about cancer."