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.