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 were very much attached to each other, and their
cheerful dispositions, good conduct and unceasing industry led to their
being granted many privileges. Both my father and my mother had taken
a strong liking to Trenfield; and so, too, had Ruth Kenna, a young
free female servant of ours. As for we boys, we simply worshipped both
Trenfield and May as heroes who had sailed in the far South Seas and
harpooned and killed the mighty sperm whale, and had fought with the
wild and naked savages of the Pacific Isles.
Ruth Kenna was the daughter of a small farmer in the district, who had
been emancipated by the good Governor. He was a widower, and a rough,
taciturn man, but passionately devoted to Ruth, who was his only child.
He had been transported for having taken part in the disastrous Irish
rebellion of '98,' and his young wife had followed him to share his
exile. The terrors and hardships of the long voyage out killed her, for
she died almost as soon as she landed, without seeing her husband,
and leaving her infant child to the kindly care of the officers of the
detachment of the regiment which had come out in the same ship. By them
the infant girl had been placed in the charge of a respectable female
convict, who, at my mother's expense, had kept her till she was ten
years of age. Then she came to us as a servant, and had remained ever
since.
Very often my father--though he pretended, as became his official
position in a Crown Colony, to have a great dislike to Irish Roman
Catholics--would allow we boys to go to Patrick Kenna's farm to shoot
native bears and opossums, which were very plentiful thereabout, for
the land was very thickly timbered with blue gum, tallow-wood and native
apple. The house itself stood on the margin of a small tidal creek,
whose shallow waters teemed with fish of all descriptions, and in the
winter Kenna would catch great numbers of whiting, bream and sea mullet,
which he salted and dried and sold to the settlers who lived inland.
He lived quite alone, except from Saturday morning till Sunday morning,
when Ruth stayed with him and straightened up the rough house. Sometimes
Ruth would persuade my mother to let my brother Will and myself stay
with them for the night, and dearly did we love going; for her father,
though a silent, cold-mannered man to most people, was always different
to any one of us Egertons, and never even grumbled when we got into
mischief, though he pretended to be very angry. Once, indeed, he had
good cause to be--as I shall relate.
One Saturday evening, after we had finished our supper, Patrick Kenna
found that he had run out of tobacco, and said that if we were not
afraid of being left by ourselves for a few hours he would walk into Bar
Harbour and buy some before the store closed, returning before midnight.
Of course we did not mind, and in a few minutes Ruth's father set out,
accompanied by 'King Billy' and one or two other black-fellows who
were in hopes of selling some wild honey for a bottle or two of rum. We
watched them disappear into the darkness of the forest, and then, as the
night was suitable, my brother Will proposed that we should all go down
to the creek and fish for black bream.
'The tide is coming in, Ruth,' he said gleefully, 'and we'll have fine
sport. I'll go on first and light a fire on the bank.'
Presently, as Ruth and I were getting ready our lines, he dashed into
the house again, panting with excitement.
'Never mind the lines. Oh, I have glorious news! The salmon are coming
in, in swarms, and the water is alive with them! Ruth, let us get the
net and put it right across the creek as soon as it is slack water.
'Twill be glorious.'
Now, we knew that the sea salmon had been seen out at sea a few days
before, but it was yet thought to be too soon for their vast droves
to enter the rivers and lagoons. But Will was quite right, for when we
dragged down the heavy net we found that the water, which half an hour
before, though under the light of myriad stars, had been black and
silent, was now a living sheet of phosphorescent light, caused by the
passage up the creek of countless thousands of agitated fish, driven in
by hundreds of porpoises and savage, grey ocean-haunting sharks, whose
murderous forms we could see darting to and fro just outside the shallow
bar, charging into and devouring the helpless, compact masses of salmon,
whose very numbers prevented them from escaping; for serried legion
after legion from the sea swam swiftly in to the narrow passage and
pressed upon those which were seeking to force their way up to the
shallow, muddy waters five miles beyond--where alone lay safety from the
tigers of the sea.
Ruth Kenna, as wild with excitement as my brother and myself, took up
one pole of the net and sprang into the water, leaving Will and I to pay
out on our side. She was a tall, strong girl, but what with the force of
the inward current and the mad press of the terrified salmon, she could
barely reach the sand-spit on the other shore, though the passage was
not fifty feet across. But she managed to struggle ashore and secure her
end of the net by jamming the pole between some logs of driftwood which
lay upon the sand. Then, with a loud, merry laugh, she bade me run up
to the house and bring her a petticoat and bodice, and leaping into the
water she swam across again and helped Will to properly secure his end
of the net to the bole of a tea tree.
Old as I am now, the memory of that happy, happy night lives with me
yet. By the light of a huge fire of logs we sat and watched the net,
which, as the tide ebbed, curved outward to the sea, though the salmon
without still tried to force a passage into the creek, and the ravening
sharks outside the deep water of the bar rushed through and through
their close-packed ranks and gorged themselves till they rolled about,
with distended bellies, as if they were water-logged baulks of timber.
As we sat by the fire, waiting for the tide to run out, we heard the
dogs barking and knew that Patrick Kenna had returned. Presently we
heard him walking down towards us, and at the same moment Ruth uttered
an exclamation of terror and pointed to the water.
'Oh, look! look! There are a lot of sharks inside, coming down the
creek. Quick! let this end of the net go, or they will be caught in it
and tear it to pieces!'
Her father was alive to the danger. Springing before us, he cut the end
of the line fastened to the tea-tree; but he was too late, for before
the net had tailed out to the current four or five sharks had dashed
into it and entangled themselves in its meshes, and in ten minutes the
net was utterly ruined, for although the sharks could not use their
teeth, the great weight of their gorged bodies and their furious
struggles soon tore the bight of it to shreds.
Kenna watched the destruction of the net in silence. As he stood in the
light of the fire, his dark, rugged face showed no sign of the anger
that must have burned within him at our thoughtless conduct.
'Ye might have waited till I was back, Ruth,' he said quietly; 'there's
as good a net as was ever made gone to ruin. And sure 'twas a mad thing
for ye to do when th' ravening sharks were so plentiful.'
Of course my father and mother were very angry with us, and sent Kenna
five pounds to partly pay for the damage done. He sent it back by Ruth,
and said that he would be a poor creature to take it, for the mishap was
caused by Ruth's folly, and that we boys were in no way to blame.
* * * * *
Almost every alternate evening Tom May would come to our house, and go
to Walter Trenfield's quarters, which were in a large airy loft over
our stable, and the two young men would dress and sew the skins of
the wallabies and 'possums which my brothers had shot. My mother never
objected to us staying with them till about ten o'clock, and Ruth, too,
often came and made coffee for us all. Both May and Trenfield always
behaved well and soberly, and although they had been whale-ship sailors
they were always very careful in their language when we were with them.
Some time before my mother's angry interview with Mr Sampson she had
mentioned, in his hearing, to Major Trenton's wife, that her boys were
greatly attached to the two young men, whose stories of their former
sea life were very exciting, and so forth, whereupon the clergyman said
sourly that both were dangerous villains who should not be trusted, and
she would do well to prevent the further intercourse of her children
with such rascals.
My mother bowed stiffly to him, and said gently that she thought he was
mistaken greatly in their characters; also she was well able to look
after her children's morals; but Mrs Trenton, a sharp-tongued old
Irishwoman, who hated the parson and loved my mother, spoke out pretty
plainly.
'No one but a clergyman would make such a rude speech to a lady, sir.
A man who _called_ himself a gentleman would be made to account for his
lack of manners.'
One Saturday afternoon, as Walter Trenfield and Ruth were driving the
cows down to the creek to drink, and Will and I were idling about on the
seaward hill, we saw Patrick Kenna ride up to the house, dismount and
knock. He only remained indoors a few minutes, and presently we saw him
galloping towards Trenfield and Ruth, with whom he stayed talking for
even a still shorter time; then, without taking any notice of us--which
was most unusual for him--he put spurs to his horse and rode straight
for the scrub, towards his home.
'There is something the matter,' said Will. 'See, there is Walter
running up to the house again. Come, let us see what it is.'
We ran home, and entering by the garden gate saw that Walter was talking
to my mother on the back verandah. She seemed very troubled and almost
on the verge of crying, and we soon heard the news, which was bad
enough. Thomas May had been given a hundred lashes and had taken to the
bush.
It appeared that May, whom we had not seen for one or two weeks, had
been working under an overseer named Cross, at a place about ten miles
from the town. (This man Cross was of a notoriously savage disposition,
and had himself been a convict in Van Diemen's Land, but had received a
pardon for having shot and killed a bushranger there.)
May, with the rest of his gang, was felling timber, when a heavy chip
flew from the tallow-wood tree upon which he was working, and struck
the overseer in the face. Cross at once flew into a violent passion, and
with much foul language accused poor May of having thrown the chip at
him. This the young fellow warmly denied, whereupon Cross, taking his
pistol out of his belt, struck the sailor on the mouth with the butt. In
an instant May returned the blow by knocking the overseer down, and was
then seized by two of his fellow-convicts. He was ironed and taken into
town, and on the following morning was brought before Mr Sampson and
another magistrate. It was no use of his pleading provocation, he
received his flogging within a few hours. Towards daylight he crept out
of his hut, broke into his master's storeroom, and took a musket, powder
and ball, and as much food as he could carry, telling a fellow-prisoner
that he would perish in the bush rather than be taken alive.
On the fifth night after his escape, and whilst the constables were
scouring the country in search of him, he came to Patrick Kenna's house.
The night was very dark and the rain descending in torrents; so, there
being no fear of intruders, Kenna barred his door and made the poor
fellow comfortable by giving him a change of clothes, a good meal and
some tobacco to smoke. Tom inquired very eagerly after Walter, and sent
him a long message, and then told Kenna some startling news.
Two days after he had absconded, and when he was quite thirty miles
distant from Bar Harbour, he saw smoke arising from a dense scrub.
Creeping along on his hands and knees he saw two men--escaped convicts
like himself--engaged in skinning a wallaby. He at once made himself
known to them and was welcomed. After a meal from the wallaby, the two
men asked him if he would join them in a plan they had of getting away
from the country; he was just the man, they said, being a sailor, who
could bring the attempt to a successful issue. Then they told him that,
many weeks previously, they had found a whale-boat lying capsized on the
beach some miles away, and that she was perfectly sound. By great labour
they had succeeded in dragging her up into the margin of the scrub on
the beach, where they had turned her over and covered her carefully with
dead branches. A further search along the beach had resulted in their
finding an oar and one of the line tubs,{*} but that was all.
* English whale-ship boats generally used two line tub's--
American only one. No doubt this boat was lost from an
English whaler, the _Britannia_, then on the coast.
Of course poor Tom May was greatly taken with this, and said that he
would join them, and that he thought Walter Trenfield would come as
well. He went with the men to look at the boat, and found her just as
they had said--almost new and quite watertight. He agreed to return to
within a safe distance of Bar Harbour, and, through Patrick Kenna, let
Trenfield know of the discovery of the boat and get him to help them to
fit her out properly. Oars and a mast they could easily make, had they
the tools, and a sail could also be obtained through either Ruth or her
father, who could get them enough coarse calico for the purpose.
Kenna promised to help, although he told Tom he should try to dissuade
Walter from joining in the enterprise. Just before daylight May bid
Kenna good-bye, as he was anxious to return to the other two convicts
and tell them that they had friends who would help them. Before he
left, however, he arranged with Kenna that the latter should bring the
required articles one by one--especially two breakers of water--to the
foot of Little Nobby's and hide them in the scrub at the spot agreed
upon. Then, when all was ready and a dark night favoured, May and the
other two men were to launch the boat and make their way with all speed
down the coast to Little Nobby's--nearly twenty miles distant from where
the boat was hidden--take on board the water and provisions and put to
sea; it being May's intention, whether Trenfield joined him or not, to
make to the northward for Timor in the East Indies. Then, with a warm
hand-grasp, they parted; and never again was Thomas May seen alive.
On the following morning Kenna contrived to see Walter and tell him that
his former shipmate was safe, and what was afoot. Of course Walter was
overjoyed to learn that he (Tom) had such a means of escape offering,
and at once announced his intention of falling in with the enterprise;
but Patrick Kenna spoke very strongly against his doing so, and Ruth,
too, came to her father's aid. It was, they said, foolish of him to link
himself with these desperate men, every one of whom had a price upon his
head, whereas he, Walter, stood in good chance of receiving his pardon
at any moment. Why should he sacrifice himself and break Ruth's heart
for the sake of his friend?
So, finally, overcome by their arguments, he yielded, saying, however,
that he felt he was acting a coward's part, and begged of Kenna to
arrange a farewell meeting between Tom and himself. This, wisely enough,
Kenna refused to do, but said he would do anything else to make their
separation easier. So Trenfield wrote his old comrade a letter of
farewell, and, taking a canvas bag, he filled it with all sorts of
articles likely to be useful on a long boat voyage. Kenna took the bag,
together with material for a sail, away with him at night and placed it
in the spot agreed upon with May. He had already given Tom a tomahawk
and an adze with which to make some oars and a mast.
On the fourth night after his visit to Kenna's house, Tom May again came
through the bush, and went to Little Nobby's, for when Ruth's father
went to the hiding-place in the morning with a breaker of water and a
large bundle of dried fish, he found that the bag and the sail-cloth
were gone, and on a small piece of white driftwood which lay on the
ground these words were written in charcoal:--
'_Sunday, Midnight?_'
By this Kenna knew that the three men meant to come for the provisions
and water at the time mentioned. It was then Friday, and he had much
to do to get all in readiness; for Little Nobby's was quite six miles
distant from his house, and he could only make his journeys to and fro
with great secrecy, for the constables were still searching the coastal
region for May. But, aided by Billy, the aboriginal, he managed to have
everything in readiness early on Sunday night. He afterwards told my
mother that besides the two breakers of water, each holding ten gallons,
he had provided four gallons of rum, a hundredweight each of salted
meat and dried fish, tobacco and pipes, fishing tackle, two muskets, and
plenty of powder and bullets. The place selected for the landing of
the boat was an excellent one; for on one side of Little Nobby's was a
little, narrow bay running in between high clifis of black trap rock,
which broke the force of the ocean swell entirely. Then, too, the place
was very lonely and seldom visited, for the main road lay nearly two
miles back beyond the clifis.
Whether my mother actually knew of all that was going on I do not know;
but I do know that about this time she seemed paler than ever, and we
frequently saw her and Ruth talking earnestly together; and Ruth and
Walter, too, were always whispering to each other.
Sunday came, and as my mother, since her quarrel with the Reverend Mr
Sampson over the flogging of old Callaghan, did not now go to church,
we all, except my father, who was still on friendly terms with the
clergyman, remained at home, my mother herself conducting a short
service in the dining-room, at which all the servants, free and bond,
attended. In the afternoon Major Trenton, Captain Crozier and some other
soldier officers rode up, as was customary with them on Sundays, and
Ruth and Denham brought them brandy and water on the front verandah,
where they awaited my mother and sisters.
'Harry, you young rascal,' said Major Trenton, presently to my eldest
brother, 'what did you do with Mr Moore's picture of the parson, eh?'
'It was stolen from me, sir,' he answered, laughing, 'about three or
four months ago.'
'Indeed,' said the major; 'then the thief has principles, and will
doubtless send it back to you, for he has made a score of copies of
it, and they are all over the district. Why, the rascal, whoever he is,
nailed one to the door of the Commissariat Store not long ago, and the
first person to see it was Mr Sampson himself. He is mightily wroth
about it, I can tell ye, and somehow suspects that the picture came from
someone in this house, and told your father that these copies were given
about by your man Trenfield. So just ye give a hint to the fellow, and
tell him that if the parson gets a chance to tickle his back, faith
he'll do it.'
'I am sure, sir, that Walter did not take the picture,' said my brother.
'It was nailed up over my bed and one day I missed it. I thought that
my mother had destroyed or taken it away. But she had not, and I cannot
account for its disappearance.'
Now this was hardly true, for, from something they had heard from Ruth,
both Harry and my sister Frances thought that Thomas May had taken away
the caricature, intending to replace it.
'Well, never mind, my lad,' said Major Trenton, laughing, ''tis a
monstrous fine joke, anyway, and, faith, I sent one of the copies to the
Governor himself. 'Twill amuse him hugely.'
Presently my mother and my two sisters joined the group on the verandah,
and as they were all talking and laughing together, Ruth Kenna came to
my mother and said that her father had just come with a basket of fresh
fish and would like to see her for a minute. I, being the youngest boy
of the family, and over-fond--so my brothers said--of hanging on
to mammy's apron-strings, as well as being anxious to see the fish,
followed her out on to the back verandah, where black-browed, dark-faced
Patrick Kenna awaited her.
''Tis a fine dark night coming on, ma'am,' he said in a low voice. 'The
wind is north-east and 'twill hould well till daylight. Then 'twill come
away from the south-east, sure enough. They should be there long before
midnight and out of sight of land before the dawn.'
'Yes, yes, Patrick,' said my mother, hurriedly. 'I shall pray to-night
to God for those in peril on the sea; and to forgive us for any wrong we
may have done in this matter.'
'No harm can iver come to any wan in this house,' said the man,
earnestly, raising her hand to his lips, 'for the blessin' av God an'
the Holy Virgin is upon it.'
My mother pressed his hand. 'Good-bye, Patrick. I do hope all may go
well;' and with this she went away.
Kenna raised his hat and turned to go, when Walter Trenfield came to the
foot of the verandah steps and stopped him.
'Let me come with you,' he said, 'and bid Tom good-bye.'
'No,' answered Kenna, roughly, 'neither you nor I nor any wan else must
go near Nobby's to-night; matthers are goin' well enough, an' no folly
of yours shall bring desthruction upon them. As it is, the constables
suspect me, and are now watching my house.'
Then, mounting his horse again, he rode leisurely away over the brow of
the hill towards the scrub, through which his road lay.
Both Walter and Ruth knew that unless the night was very clear there was
no chance of even the lookout man on the pilot station seeing a small
boat passing along to the southward; but nevertheless they went up to
the pilot station about ten o'clock, when they thought that Tom May
and his companions would be passing Bar Harbour on their way to Little
Nobby's. They stayed on the headland for nearly an hour, talking to Tom
King and the look-out man, and then came home, feeling satisfied that
if the three men had succeeded in launching the boat safely, they had
passed Bar Harbour about eleven o'clock and would reach Nobby's at or
before midnight.
Soon after breakfast next morning, Patrick Kenna, under pretence of
speaking to my mother about a strayed heifer of ours, came into the
kitchen, and told Ruth that all was well; he had been to Little Nobby's
at daylight and found that everything was gone and the boat was nowhere
to be discerned.
For quite another two or three weeks after this the constables pursued
their search after Thomas May, much to the amusement of Ruth and
Patrick Kenna, especially as the latter, with 'King Billy' and another
aboriginal, were officially employed by my father at ten shillings _per
diem_ to discover the absconder--Billy, who seemed to be most anxious
to get the reward of five pounds, leading the constables all over the
country and eating more than three men's rations daily. At last the
chase was abandoned, and my father wrote officially to Sydney and said
that 'Thomas May, No. 3614, _Breckenbridge_,' was supposed to have
either died of starvation in the bush or have been killed by the
natives. My mother, of course, thought she knew better.
And so the matter was forgotten by everyone but us who had known and
cared for the good-natured, high-spirited and warm-hearted young sailor;
and as the months went by, Walter Trenfield and my mother both looked
forward to receiving a letter from Tom May, telling them that he and his
companions had reached some port in the Dutch East Indies in safety. For
not only was the boat well found, but they had plenty of provisions,
and Tom May was a thorough seaman; and besides that, my mother had often
told us the story of the convict William Bryant, who had escaped from
Sydney Harbour in Governor Phillip's time, and in an open boat, with
four other men and his wife and two infant children, succeeded in
reaching Timor, after a voyage of three thousand miles.{*}
* Publisher's Note.--The strange but true story of the
Bryants is told in a volume entitled _A First Fleet Family_.
(Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
1896.)
But no letter came until two long years had passed.
Ruth Kenna, at the time of my story, though not yet seventeen years of
age, was a tall, powerful girl, and was known as the best horsewoman in
all the country around. She was a happy, good-natured sort of a wench,
with a heart filled with sunshine and love and truth and honesty; though
Mr Sampson once told my father that she was a 'dangerous Papist,' and
the child of a convicted rebel, and as such should have no place in
a Protestant family. This so angered my mother that she wrote the
clergyman a very sharp letter and said she would take it as a favour if
he would not interfere with her servants. This was a great thing for her
to do; and my father said 'twas most indiscreet. But mother only smiled
and said that although she was sorry Ruth was a Papist, she (Ruth) was a
good, honest girl, and that her father was a good, honest man, and that
if Mr Sampson was wise he would not come near Ruth, who, being a free
woman, had said she would throw him down the garden well. At this time
Ruth was looking forward to the day of her marriage with Trenfield, who,
through my father's influence with the Governor, was expecting to be
pardoned.
But now I am forging ahead too fast, and must go back to where we boys
and Walter Trenfield were lying on the grassy bluff overlooking Little
Nobby's awaiting the return of my brother Harry.