There were droplets on the fine points of the tussocks, and our footprints revealed the dry white sand under the heavy crust the rain had made. The cold wind flicked new droplets at us as we walked. Behind us, over the rise and further out to the west I could see the she-oaks bending to the wind, whistling softly.

This place belonged to the weather. People were incidental.

Munro led us to a shed made of planking, open to the east but walled in on the west side where the wind prevailed. Shrubs grew over the protected side, tilting away from the salt breeze. Inside were tall stacks of hides, rich brown in their centres and fringed with pale, ragged skin. They had been pressed into bales, a yard or more square: every hide was a living creature, every bale maybe a hundred hides. The smell was the stench of anything rendered: thick and sour and meaty.

I pushed my fingers through the fur in the stack nearest to me: the dark lustre of the top layer gave way to a surprisingly white undercoat that was warm and soft to the touch. Forty, maybe fifty of these stacks. Five thousand beasts. How could the seals breed fast enough to balance what was taken? I suppose gentlemen must wear hats, and felt must come from somewhere, and every hat in the world has its birth in the squeals of an uncomprehending animal being clubbed to death.

My father stood beside me, inhaling deeply through his nose. The smells he was parsing must have been complex indeed if they conveyed the sight I beheld.

In the corner nearest to us, nearest to the daylight, the floor of the shed was covered in the same downy feathers I’d seen in the house. Great sacks, even larger than the bales of hides, stood in piles around the feathered ground. In the shadows were two cauldrons on wrought legs. Like the press, they were greased, smeared with gut and oil.

‘Lucky ye’re not here when we’re boiling down,’ Munro said, with a nod towards the big iron try-pot. ‘Stinks to high hell. Mutton bird. The women call em yolla but it’s the same, moonbird—as fer what you call your boat.’

Munro again cast an eye over Mr Argyle.

‘Anyways the feathers and the oil go out, Sydney and Hobart, an we keep the meat for us.’ He seemed inordinately proud of the enterprise. ‘Main women’s in charge, them tyereelores. The young uns we call wanapakalela: do all the pluckin and packin. Five hundred a day if they’s quick. Try to do as much of it as we can this time o’ year when the birds are skinny. If they gets too fat, they’re harder to pluck and then the women get irascible.’