gone so far as to form a plan for making a pair of unmentionables, and in imagination had built himself a hut from the flooring to the roof. As feathers show the direction of the wind, so these trifling matters indicated the presence of qualities requisite to form a successful colonist.
Parting scenes are sacred, and hopes and prayers breathed at such a season are chronicled elsewhere. Mr. Raymond accompanied his son a short distance on his way to meet the coach, and, on leaving him, pressed into his hand a bill drawn on a merchant in Melbourne, as well as some ready cash, bade "God bless him" and returned with a heavy heart "in all the silent manliness of grief."
By the evening, Hugh found himself in comfortable quarters at Plymouth, but with a mind disturbed and excited by the events of the day: he felt, too, not without pride, that he would now have to look to his own exertions and conduct alone for independence and success. —
"The wide world was all before him,
But a world without a home."
His dream, that night, was of the happy one he was leaving — the one he looked for was but as a dream itself.
Any passenger that ever had the ill-fortune to sail in the "Big Ann," would scarcely have conceived that the most imaginative advertisement could have described her as "a well known, first class, fast sailing, clipper-built ship; noted for her great speed, and for her handsome model: her cabins very spacious, and complete with every convenience and comfort." To the initiated, the "Big Ann" was well known — but only as a "regular tub," that would broach-to in foul weather, but could not make above eight knots an hour under the most favourable auspices.
