e a bit
sweeter about it, if there was. But America's good enough for me, and
I'm off there--yes, even if I have to work my passage out!"

Early next morning, fully equipped for their journey, the Mahonys stood
on the William's Town pier, the centre of the usual crowd of relatives
and friends. This had been further swelled by the advent of Mrs.
Devine, who came panting up followed by her husband, and by Agnes Ocock
and Amelia Grindle, who had contrived to reach Melbourne the previous
evening. Even John's children were tacked on, clad in their Sunday
best. Everybody talked at once and laughed or wept; while the children
played hide-and-seek round the ladies' crinolines. Strange eyes were
bent on their party, strange ears cocked in their direction; and yet
once again Mahony's dislike to a commotion in public choked off his
gratitude towards these good and kindly people. But his star was
rising: tears and farewells and vows of constancy had to be cut short,
a jaunt planned by the whole company to the ship itself abandoned; for
a favourable wind had sprung up and the captain was impatient to weigh
anchor. And so the very last kisses and handclasps exchanged, the
travellers climbed down into a boat already deep in the water with
other cuddy-passengers and their luggage, and were rowed out to where
lay that good clipper-ship, the RED JACKET. Sitting side by side
husband and wife watched, with feelings that had little in common, the
receding quay, Mary fluttering her damp handkerchief till the separate
figures had merged in one dark mass, and even Tilly, planted in front,
her handkerchief tied flagwise to the top of Jerry's cane, could no
longer be distinguished from the rest.

Mahony's foot met the ribbed teak of the deck with the liveliest
satisfaction; his nostrils drank in the smell of tarred ropes and oiled
brass. Having escorted Mary below, seen to the stowing away of their
belongings and changed his town clothes for a set of comfortable baggy
garments, he returned to the deck, where he passed the greater part of
the day tirelessly pacing. They made good headway, and soon the ports
and towns at the water's edge were become mere whitey smudges. The
hills in the background lasted longer. But first the Macedon group
faded from sight; then the Dandenong Ranges, grown bluer and bluer,
were also lost in the sky. The vessel crept round the outside of the
great Bay, to clear shoals and sandbanks, and, by afternoon, with the
sa