In the Roaring Fifties | Page 8

more about the matter.' He moved
away, but the lady extended the slim gloved fingers again, lowering her
eyes for an effective unveiling.
'I respect your feelings,' she said, as if making great concession.
Really, the boy was most interesting, so handsome, so unusual. She
smiled upon him like a guardian angel with exquisite teeth, and the
scamp turned again to the sea, apostrophizing in fo'c'sle idiom all
interfering fools and sentimental humbugs.
III

Lucy Woodrow did not appear on the deck until after nightfall. Jim
understood that she would insist upon expressing lifelong gratitude
with the usual effusion and the usual tears. He feared the ordeal, and
prepared himself for it. He had seen the girl often during the voyage,
sometimes accompanied by a blonde youth, whose beautiful clothes
and exquisite manners afforded unfailing material for primitive satire in
the forecastle, but, as a rule, quite alone, muffled in a dark, hooded
cloak, watching the sea, always with her face turned yearningly back,
as if England and home lay straight out along the vessel's wake. She
was middling tall, eighteen perhaps, with a thin but supple and pleasing
figure, and a quiet, smileless face, that wanted only happiness to make
it beautiful.
Done's misanthropy was not a quality of his nature, it was thrust upon
him, and did not prevent his being a close observer of men and things;
but that he had the smallest interest in any person on board was not
believed by one of his shipmates, since he was instinctively careful to
betray no concern. He had been struck by the girl's apparent loneliness.
The attentions of the blonde youth were borne meekly, as part of the
contiguous discomforts--that much was obvious to the forecastle and
all under. It never occurred to Jim that she was probably placed like
himself, and had good reason to stand aloof.
When he had been on board the Francis Cadman a month or so, Jim
was amazed to find that the attitude of the passengers and the crew
towards himself was almost analogous to that of the people of Chisley.
Nearly every phase of feeling that was manifested amongst the
villagers presented itself here, and he was troubled. His first suspicion
was that his identity had become known. He had small knowledge of
men, and a sick fear gripped him at the thought that all communities
were alike, and would reflect the suspicions and animosities of his little
village if it were known among them that one of his blood had done
murder, and had suffered as a murderer. But no whisper of his story
reached his ears, and he remained perplexed. He had yet to learn that
society in all its phases is ever intensely suspicious of the man apart.
His one desire had been that he might be lost amongst the passengers,
that he might efface himself in the crowd by keeping carefully out of

every man's way and concerning himself with the interests of none. By
doing this he hoped to land in Australia unknown, unheeded, and start
his life again, cut off from the past completely. He had only succeeded
in making himself notorious. He was silent, reserved, but he was
different to the others, and to hide amongst sheep one must be a sheep.
Jim's very anxiety to escape notice made him conspicuous. His
aloofness was resented as 'dirty pride,' and, being strange to all, he
became the butt of many.
Jim Done was not of the type that rough-living men select as the
victims of their small jokes; but in the forecastle the disposition to play
upon the Hermit developed from small and secret things into open
harassment, and Jim's stoicism was wholly misconstrued. He did not
seem to see things that would have caused others in the company to fill
the ship with bad language and dread of death; he was impervious to
rhymed jibes and broad sarcasms that were supposed to have peculiar
powers of irritation if repeated constantly, day after day and night after
night, without any apparent feeling, or motive, or reason under the sun.
Fire was struck one evening with a particularly good joke played upon
Done in his bunk. Jim stepped down amongst the laughing men in his
shirt, and selecting the one whose laugh was loudest and most hearty,
he struck him an open-handed blow that drove him like a log along the
floor. There was little noise. A narrow 'ring' was improvised, two or
three bits of candle were found to help the sooty ship's lantern, and the
men fought as they stood.
Jim's opponent was Phil Ryan, a smart young sailor, six or seven years
his senior. The fight was short but lively, and the onlookers had not one
word of comment to offer after the first