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