Moreton Bay by F.W. Mole — Read

Anne Worthington, Mary's mother, was born and reared in an atmosphere of romance and adventure. She was the daughter of Thomas Shepherd, a coastguard, and was a native of Polperro, in Cornwall, a village that was made rich on smuggled goods. Her father, after serving ten years in the Navy, was appointed to the coastguard service and was sent on duty to Youghal, in the County of Cork.

The coastguard service was then under the jurisdiction of the Customs, and not, as now, under the control of the navy. It was the settled policy of the service that English men were transferred for duty to Ireland, and Irishmen to England; but disliking his banishment to Ireland and yearning for his homeland of Cornwall, Thomas Shepherd threw up the coastguard service and returned to England with his wife, Harriet, and his only daughter, Anne, and opened a ship chandlery business in Polperro. There, profiting by his experience as a coastguard in Youghal, he discovered a smuggler's hoard beneath a movable duck pond on a farm near by. Brought up among the preventive men, Anne lived in a region of romance and story. Blood-curdling tales of pirates who had their headquarters on Lundy, of cruel Coppinger and Harry Page of Poole, daring Englishmen who had plundered the French and Spanish, were told on the long winter evenings when terrific storms ravaged the rock-bound coasts of Devon and Cornwall. And Anne was a most interested listener to all these tales of murder and daring. It was not surprising, therefore, that among such surroundings she grew up to be a fearless and intrepid daughter of England, and as brave and as beautiful as the fairest daughter of Lyonesse.