And meditatively pricking her needle in and out of the window-curtain, Polly fell into a reverie over her husband and his ways. How strange Richard was ... how difficult! First, to be able to forget all about how things stood with him, and then to be twice as upset as other people.
John demanded the immediate delivery of his young son, undertaking soon to knock all nasty tricks out of him. On the day fixed for Johnny's departure husband and wife were astir soon after dawn. Mahony was to have taken the child down to the coach-office. But Johnny had been awake since two o'clock with excitement, and was now so fractious that Polly tied on her bonnet and accompanied them. She knew Richard's hatred of a scene.
"You just walk on, dear, and get his seat," she said, while she dragged the cross, tired child on her hand to the public-house, where even at this hour a posse of idlers hung about.
And she did well to be there. Instantly on arriving Johnny set up a wail, because there was talk of putting him inside the vehicle; and this persisted until the coachman, a goat-bearded Yankee, came to the rescue and said he was darned if such a plucky young nipper shouldn't get his way: he'd have the child tied on beside him on the box-seat—be blowed if he wouldn't! But even this did not satisfy Johnny; and while Mahony went to procure a length of rope, he continued to prance round his aunt and to tug ceaselessly at her sleeve.
"Can I dwive, Aunt Polly, can I dwive? Ask him, can I dwive!" he roared, beating her skirts with his fists. He was only silenced by the driver threatening to throw him as a juicy morsel to the gang of bushrangers who, sure as blazes, would be waiting to stick the coach up directly it entered the bush.
Husband and wife lingered to watch the start, when the champing horses took a headlong plunge forward and, together with the coach, were swallowed up in a whirlwind of dust. A last glimpse discovered Johnny, pale and wide-eyed at the lurching speed, but sitting bravely erect.
"The spirit of your brother in that child, my dear!" said Mahony as they made to walk home.
"Poor little Johnny," and Polly wiped her eyes. "If only he was going back to a mother who loved him, and would understand."
"I'm sure no mother could have done more for him than you, love."
"Yes, but a real mother wouldn't need to give him up, however naughty he had been."