Keeping open house, and
hospitable to the point of vulgarity, they were, it was evident,
pinchfists when it came to parting with their money. Still, in the case
of a little woman who had served them so faithfully! In thought he set a
thick black mark against their name, for their cavalier treatment of his
Polly. And extended it to John Turnham as well. John had made no move to
put hand to pocket; and Polly's niceness of feeling had stood in the way
of her applying to him for aid. It made Mahony yearn to snatch the girl
to him, then and there; to set her free of all contact with such
coarse-grained, miserly brutes.
Old Ocock negotiated the hire of a neat spring cart for him, and a stout
little cob; and at last the day had actually come, when he could set out
to bring Polly home. By his side was Ned Turnham. Ned, still a lean-jowled
wages-man at Rotten Gully, made no secret of his glee at getting
carried down thus comfortably to Polly's nuptials. They drove the
eternal forty odd miles to Geelong, each stick and stone of which was
fast becoming known to Mahony; a journey that remained equally tiresome
whether the red earth rose as a thick red dust, or whether as now it had
turned to a mud like birdlime in which the wheels sank almost to the
axles. Arrived at Geelong they put up at an hotel, where Purdy awaited
them. Purdy had tramped down from Tarrangower, blanket on back, and
stood in need of a new rig-out from head to foot.
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