Red O'Shaughnessy by J.H.M. Abbott — Read

BETWEEN the present Morpeth and West Maitland--which used, long ago, to be the Green Hills and Wallis Plains--the Hunter River winds in the most sinuous manner imaginable. The two towns, as the crow flies, are under five miles apart--by the river the distance is over twenty. On either side of the twisting waterway, deep and rich flats of chocolate alluvial, laid down in the floodings of the valley through countless ages, stretch away to the foot-hills of the distant blue ranges, clear of all their native timbers, and farmed and cultivated to the last acre. But in 1812 a dense forest covered all the countryside--an extent of bushland so thick and luxurious as is hardly to be realised to-day. Great 'flooded-gums' grew close to the river's banks, and further back many varieties of eucalyptus covered the country, interspersed with belts of forest-oak, whilst everywhere was an abundance of the vanished and valuable red cedar.

It was into this wilderness that Captain Axthorpe led his little contingent, half-a-dozen strong, in the somewhat vague hope of coming up with the two runaway assigned servants, Saxton and Burrows, who had so despitefully and contemptuously treated their master, Mr. Aylmer, besides robbing him, and threatening him with personal violence. A blackfellow of the district, who claimed to know where the bushrangers were to be found, acted as guide to the little column, and led them through the forest along the right bank of the river in a more or less westerly direction. The Commandant and Mr. Aylmer were in the van, followed immediately by Red O'Shaughnessy. Then came the two soldiers detailed by Corporal Jones, and after them a couple of the boatmen from the whaler, carrying such supplies as Captain Axthorpe had deemed it necessary to take with them.