ten days—six hundred miles. "A sworn horse-courser," like Blount, was Hopping Jack, and, unlike Marmion's fast squire, had ridden many a steeplechase. In the quickly shifting adventure-scope of the day it chanced that the two Jacks went to sea, desiring to revisit Scotia, doubtless for their pecuniary benefit. A great storm arose, and the homeward-bound vessel was wrecked. The passengers barely escaped with their lives, and were forced to return to Port Phillip. At one period of the disaster there was little or no hope for the lives of all. As they clung gloomily to the uplifted deck—fast on a reef—Hopping Jack approached Mr. Hunter with a grave and resolved air. All waited to hear his words. In that solemn hour he proved the exquisite accuracy of the thought, "The ruling passion strong in death," by thus adjuring his turf acquaintance, "Look here, Mr. Hunter, we shall all be in — — in twenty minutes, it can't matter much now. Was Hellcat really a Sir Charles?" History is silent as to the reply.
How strange a Melbourne would the picture—still distinctly photographed on memory's wondrous "negative"—present to the inhabitant of 1884. A solitary wood cart is struggling down from the direction of Brighton along the unmade sandy track, patiently to await the convenience of the puntman. Frank Liardet is driving his unicorn omnibus team from the lonely beach, where now the sailors revel in many a glittering bar, and the tall sugar-refinery chimney "lifts its head" and smokes—or, at any rate, did recently. The squatter's wool-freighted bullock-teams lumber along the deep ruts of Flinders
