d cone
called 'Little Nobby'; it rose steep-to from the sea to a height of
about three hundred feet, and formed a very striking and distinct
landmark upon that part of the coast--bold and rugged as it was--for
a stretch of three score miles. Presently, as we lay upon the grass,
looking out upon the sea, Walter Trenfield and the aboriginal joined us,
and whilst they made a fire to boil a billy of tea, my brother Harry,
hearing the call of a wonga pigeon, picked up his gun and went into the
scrub to shoot it.

CHAPTER II

I must now relate something of the previous history of this young
man Trenfield. He was a native of Bideford, in Devon--my mother's
county--and had been a sailor. Some years before, he, with another young
man named Thomas May, had been concerned in a mutiny on board a London
whale-ship, the _Jason_, and both men were sentenced to fourteen years'
penal servitude, it being believed, though not proven, that either
Trenfield or May had killed one of the officers with a blow of the fist.
They were, with six of their shipmates, tried at the Old Bailey, and
although a Quaker gentleman, a Mr Robert Bent, who had visited them in
prison, gave a lawyer fifty guineas to defend them, the judge said that
although the death of the officer could not be sheeted home to either of
them, there was no doubt of their taking part in the mutiny--with which
offence they were charged. After spending three months in one of the
convict hulks they were sent out to Sydney in the _Breckenbridge_
transport. But before they sailed they were several times visited by Mr
Bent, who told them that he would always bear them in mind, and should
endeavour to have their sentences reduced if he heard good word of their
future conduct from his agent in Sydney; this Mr Bent was the owner of
several of the Government transports, which, after discharging their
cargo of convicts, would sail upon a whaling cruise to the South Seas.
More than this, he said that he would give them berths on one of his
vessels as soon as they regained their freedom, and that he had written
to his agent to that effect.

It so happened that this agent, a Mr Thomas Campbell, was a friend of my
father's, who also knew Mr Bent, and so when the _Breckenbridge_ arrived
at Sydney he succeeded in having Trenfield assigned to him, and Thomas
May to a contractor who was building a bridge for the Government over a
river in the vicinity of Bar Harbour.

The two young seamen