True History of the Kelly Gang (5 page)

Not many nights after I brung the sash home to my mother I were woken by the low growling of our kangaroo dogs and then detected the faint odours of stale hops.

Then come a most distinctive whisper from the night Mrs Kelly Mrs Kelly might I trouble you?

My mother replied with that hiss so particular to the mothers of young babes. What is it you want Mr Shelton?

But what is it you want Mrs Kelly?

My mother stayed silent but I could hear Mr Shelton scraping the mud off his boots as if he were intent on entering regardless.

What are you thinking Mrs Kelly?

What am I thinking? And any of her children would of recognised the dangerous rise and hook on its last word. Mr Shelton she said I’m lying here wondering who might be adjectival fool enough to wake my baby.

Beg pardon Mrs Kelly I’ll come back tomorrow.

I don’t want you back tomorrow Mr Shelton. She rose from her bed and knocked the pegs from the door and I watched through the curtain as the big smelly man shambled to the table and begun to noisily arrange his pipe and tobacco amongst our dirty dishes. He appeared pretty much a wreck as far as I could judge.

Mother wearily pulled her possum skin around her shoulders and waited impatiently for her guest to speak he was tongue tied and required a v. loud impatient sigh to get him rolling again.

Mrs Kelly said he at last your boy has given me back my son.

We know that Mr Shelton just tell me what is bothering you.

Its the sash he admitted.

I thought please Jesus don’t talk about the sash I valued that reward more than anything I ever owned but my mother had taken a shocking set against it on account of her opinion the Sheltons should have offered money.

The sash?

I’m thinking.

Go on Mr Shelton she encouraged.

Frankly it just don’t seem sufficient.

There were a very long silence.

Would you like a cup of tea Mr Shelton?

No Mrs Kelly there is nothing you can offer me.

Some oatcake?

I just ate.

Would you take a brandy to settle your digestion?

Mrs Kelly you’re a woman who lost her husband just like I nearly lost my son.

Don’t cry Mr Shelton they aint neither of them exactly dead.

Thats it Mrs Kelly that is what my wife has pointed out to me. I have the power to bring Mr Kelly back to you.

Though I couldnt see my mother’s face I did see her back shiver like a cat with ringworm.

How do you mean?

Mr Kelly is in the lockup you’ll forgive me mentioning it.

It is a private subject.

I made an enquiry of Constable Doxcy.

That aint your business Mr Shelton.

You’ll forgive me he says it is a matter of £25.

But my mother did not want her husband back. Oh no she cried I will not let you.

But I must Mrs Kelly I am bound to it.

Mr Shelton it is a lovely sash you give our Ned but if you don’t watch out you’ll spoil him. He’s a good boy but very headstrong and don’t need no encouragement to take more risks he’s lucky he didnt drown himself.

But surely you aint saying you wish his father left in gaol?

No cried my mother I’m saying you shouldnt make a fuss of my boy.

But you would not object to your husband being freed?

Dear Jesus cried my mother what sort of woman do you think I am?

What else could she say? One week later her husband walked back into her life. We was seated round the table eating tea when he come and stood behind me. I twisted in my seat but didnt know whether to rise or what to say.

Get out of my adjectival chair.

I squeezed down the long bench and my father took his place he rested his freckled forearms on the table and asked my mother the baby’s name. I could not take my eyes off the arms all puffy white and sweaty like cheese wrapped up too long in summer.

Grace as you know.

How would I know?

I sent Ned to tell you.

Again my father turned his eyes on me and I felt he were looking into my heart at all the sins I committed against him and he pushed his stew away telling my mother to give him what money she had hidden. I thought she would say no but she emptied her sock and give him all she had and my father walked back out into the night. We was all very quiet after he were gone.

You may think it strange that a man can survive transportation and the horrors of Van Diemen’s Land and then be destroyed in a country lockup but we cannot credit the tortures our parents suffered in Van Diemen’s Land—Port Macquarie—Toongabbie—Norfolk Island—Emu Plains. Avenel lockup were the final straw for your grandfather he did not speak more than a dozen words to me from that day until his death.

Once he worked with us putting in the oats but he no longer liked the light of day and mostly remained inside the hut. By late spring the following year he were so bloated you could hardly see his eyes was lost and lonely and angry in the middle of his swollen face. We moved around him as if he were a pit too deep to fall into. Dr May come and told us he had dropsy and we paid a great deal of money for his medicine but there were no improvement and our father lay on his crib he could hardly raise his head to sip the rum.

Mother and I now did all the ploughing we seeded 20 acres but it were too late in the season. One day at noon it were a hot December day the sky were blue and the magpies carolling my mother returned to the hut then come straight back out to fetch me.

Come she said come now.

We entered the hut together our bare feet caked with soil our hats already in our hands and there we saw our poor da lying dead upon the kitchen table he were bulging with all the poisons of the Empire his skin grey and shining in the gloom.

I were 12 yr. and 3 wk. old that day and if my feet were callused one inch thick and my hands hard and my labourer’s knees cut and scabbed and stained with dirt no soap could reach yet did I not still have a heart and were this not he who give me life now all dead and ruined? Father son of my heart are you dead from me are you dead from me my father?

PARCEL TWO

His Life Ages 12–15

Red-and-white-striped cloth booklet with red-and-blue-marbled boards (6½‘ × 7½‘ approx.). First page inscribed “To E.K. from your own M.H.” Comprising 42 pages completed in red ink, 8 pages in faint pencil. Dust soiling along edges. Several 1‘ to 4‘ tears without loss of text.

An account of the family’s arrival at the district of Greta and
a visit from their Uncle James with a very full description of
his subsequent arrest for arson and his sentencing at the
Autumn Assizes. A brief report of Ned and Jem Kelly’s life as
agricultural labourers in the service of Ellen Kelly’s sisters.
Mrs Kelly’s selection of land at Eleven Mile Creek is narrated
with considerable enthusiasm. Also includes unflattering
portraits of Anne Kelly and of various suitors of Mrs Kelly.

NOW WERE YOUR GRANDPA’S poor wracked body finally granted everlasting title to the rich soil of Avenel and your grandma left free to reveal her passion for the Duffy Land Act once again. There were now no one to contradict her or call her a fool certainly not us children. We knew the Quinns had gotten 1,000 acres at Glenmore on the King River and that is what we wanted too even Dan who were the most distressed by our father’s death.

In the hot summer evenings following the burial my mother gathered her brood about her. It were not Cuchulainn and Dedriu and Mebd she talked of now but the mighty farm we would all soon select together she said we would find a great mountain river and flats so rich no plough were needed we would plunge our hands into it and breathe the fertile loamy smell and be neighbours with our aunts and uncles once again and break wild horses and sell them and grow corn and wheat and raise fat sleek cattle and all the land beneath our feet would be our own to walk on from dawn to dusk ours and ours alone.

We did not talk about our father knowing our very excitement were an insult against his memory and his soul were within each soul of ours and would be for every moment of our lives and there would never be a knot I tied or a rabbit I skun or a horse I rode that I did not see those small eyes watching to see I done it right.

There was 60 hard crabholed miles between Avenel and my aunts Kate and Jane. The very small children rode in a borrowed cart together with our chooks in baskets & pots & pans & blankets & axes & hoes & 2 bags of seed my mother sitting up on the bench driving with baby Grace at her breast.

We older ones had charge of the cows and the dogs it were our job to catch the pig when he escaped though we never minded on account of we was going to a farm. Doubtless my mother had the same idea but when we finally arrived at the township of Greta we discovered our uncles had been put in gaol and the aunts and all their children was living in a delicensed hotel. Once a palace of the gold rush it was abandoned now like a grand old ship beached on the wide brown plain it seemed the height of luxury to me.

There was 13 bedrooms and wide hallways such as I had only previously observed in Shelton’s hotel and my cousins Tom and Jack and Jack Jr and my sister Kate run up and down and around in merry misrule.

If my mother were disappointed she never showed it she were always singing with her sisters and riding around the country with her father and brothers deciding which land she might finally select. My aunts must of been very poor but in memory it were a time of plenty and there was duck and chook eggs and fatty mutton with potatoes. Aunt Kate were 4 ft. 10 in. and skinny as a greenhide whip she made what my father called BRUITIN and the Quinns called CHAMP it is potatoes mashed up with a great lump of butter. She had a vegetable garden and she improved the soil so well it could grow anything we pulled up onions 12 in. across it would astound you to see what the land could produce in them days.

I had not been in Greta 2 wk. when I found an unbranded horse I broke with considerable assistance from Jimmy Quinn who did not have the T burned in his hand like old Ben Gould but he were already a famous thief and there was people in Greta said he’d sold his soul to the Devil. Be that as it may there were no better judge of an animal I ever met and never a man who could trick him with an unsound horse or a cow whose horn rings had been fixed up for sale with the clever aid of a file or burning iron.

Jimmy were already 1/2 mad from his numerous incarcerations wild and foul mouthed and violent but always very patient and kind to me and he didnt laugh when I said I were leaving school in order to be a selector. He said a 12 yr. old boy could do very well at buying and selling horses on the side and he helped me break several more unbranded horses so by the time my 13th birthday come around I had a small breaking yard and thought myself an expert in the matter. Some horses I traded and give the proceeds to Mother to help buy our land. I were later given several sheep which I increased by breeding until the flock was 18 strong.

When the older men in the district went off shearing at Gnawarra my brother Jem and I done the same at home me working the springback shears with Jem standing ready with the tar pot to dress their injuries. So you can see I had become a very serious boy it were my job to replace the father as it were my fault we didnt have him anymore.

I were sitting on the old hotel veranda when Dan come running white faced across the paddock he were 6 yr. old and would not tell me what it was had frightened him but he grabbed me by the sleeve and dragged me back from whence he come.

What is it?

I looked in the direction we was heading the little red strips of cloth my mother had torn for St. Brigit were fluttering from the wattles across the street.

Is it a snake?

In the distance was the Warby Ranges but where we walked the country were v. flat and the grass straw white and ankle high I kept my head down looking for the snake.

There he is.

I couldnt see nothing.

Up over there.

In the middle distance I made out a figure emerging from the shadow of a single gum tree and at 1st I thought it human but then observed that broad and careful walk and noted the way the square head were set so high and proud the stiffness in the arms which he held out from his belt. I crossed myself.

Its him.

I took Dan’s hand walking slowly forwards all the time I were wondering why my father would return and what message did he have. Then we come closer and I begun to see some dreadful damage had been done to him he had been melted in the fires of Hell his shoulders sloped his legs was bowed his nose were drooping at its end. But when I were the length of a cricket pitch away I could see the deadly bloating were all gone the misery smelted from him his eyes a lively blue. My da was now a humorist.

You are Ned said he his tone were most familiar.

My hair were prickling on my neck.

And you are Dan?

Dan gripped my hand he would not answer.

Well boys I am your Uncle James and I am hot and thirsty and my horse is in the pound in Beechworth.

My father’s eyes was private he had took his dreadful secrets to the grave but this man had no secrets and when I introduced him to the kitchen he couldnt hide his brotherly affection for my mother kissing the women and hugging the children all except Dan who were still agitated and hung back in the doorway. Tiny Kate Lloyd give him a jar of water and Mother made a cup of tea and when that did not slake his thirst he thought a tot of rum might do the trick. He proved a very lively fellow to have about the premises he were curious about everything and forever sniffing at horses’ necks children’s hair or crumbling yellow box leaves beneath his melted old red nose.

My father had been a stubborn ironbark corner post you could strain a fence with 8 taut lines and never see it budge but it didnt take a day to realise Uncle James were dug too shallow or placed in sandy soil. Everything about him were on the skew his arms and shoulders and eyebrows was all crooked. Just the same he made a v. amiable impression on his nieces and nephews and none were more taken with him than Dan who hung on his every word. He had a mighty hoard of stories and Dan brung me every one in turn Uncle Jim could sniff out gold and Uncle Jim knew where there were a reef and Uncle Jim knew where there were a herd of unbranded thoroughbreds hidden in a fastness in the bush.

From the day our da died Dan had worn that hurt and angry look he carries to the time of writing but in Uncle James’ shadow he were once again the grand little chap that helped me deliver the butter in Avenel.

Uncle James ate like a horse and the women was happy to feed him. The 1st morning he declared himself too shagged out to work but the 2nd day he went out into the bush with a sledgehammer and a bag of wedges and split fenceposts until dark. That night the sisters was very pleased they filled his glass and their own as eagerly. Then one thing led to another and by the time Sunday come he were chasing my mother around the house in broad daylight and the cows was not milked and I could hear them setting up their fuss. I attended to them while Maggie did the pigs and chickens though she complained there were a great deal too much adjectival laughter coming from the house. Afterwards I washed my hands I heard my mother run laughing to her room. It were by this time almost dusk.

My mother locked her door behind her but Uncle James were not offended and he fetched a chair from the kitchen so he might sit outside her door and sing to her.

Here comes Jack Straw
Such a man you never saw
Through a rock
Through a reel
Through an old spinning wheel
Through a bag of pepper
Through a miller’s hopper
Through a sheep’s shank bone
Such a man was never known

I did not immediately understand the song but my aunts was calling out their comments from the kitchen and soon enough it dawned on me that Uncle James were no different from Sgt O’Neil or any of them men who come knocking at my mother’s door.

Here comes I Jack Straw
With a stick in me hand ready to draw
I had 14 childer born in one night
And not one in the same townland

Then I hated him. I were 13 yr. old my head didnt reach the lowest point of my uncle’s sloping shoulder. Not able to beat him man to man I told him if he come with me I would pour him a big jar of poteen but he were deaf as a dog in the middle of a war and would not be diverted from his lechery.

You put your dirty stick away my mother called.

Uncle James’ beard parted in a grin. My stick is spic and span.

I did not want to hear no more I pulled my uncle towards the kitchen. Its Grandpa Quinn’s poteen I said.

He must of had a quart already for he swung a freckled arm and knocked me against the wall then he spoke directly to my mother’s door.

Begob I’ll put that stick inside your little stove.

I would not permit him to speak thus to my mother so I ran and climbed right up him clamping both my hands onto his beard and then twisting his head like I seen my father bring down calves at branding time. With all my weight on his great hairy head I struggled to settle him.

You mutt he cried striking me across the head so hard I landed on the floor I were winded the sparks flying like blowflies inside my brain.

Then my mother flung wide her door. You leave him alone you effing mongrel.

Whoa Ellen whoa now. He tried to take her by her forearms but she easily broke his grip. Said she I aint a horse.

I rushed him from behind and punched him in the kidney but he swatted me away and pushed my mother back into the bedroom and there he tried to throw her on her bed.

No you aint a horse. You is a bouley maiden.

I knew what this meant as did my mother. The bouley maiden is the cow which will not take the bull. She leapt up at him like a windmill and she were scratching and slapping his face and chest so I took the lower 1/2 from knees to kidneys and when he would not retreat I punched him in the bawbles. He were not our equal he fell he rose he tripped and tangled on himself and backed in defeat towards the kitchen.

Later I saw my uncle sitting on the front veranda it were that time of evening when my aunts would try a little poteen it were not quite dark and the currawongs was still crying in the mournful gloom. When the light were gone everyone come inside to eat the stew but Uncle James would not sup with us and in the end we was all so miserable and sorry to see him sad that Mother sent Danny out to ask him in for a drop of pudding.

We waited a good time but Dan didnt come back. Out on the veranda I found my little brother holding my uncle’s horny hand both of them was glued together in their malevolence. Neither of them would speak a word to me.

In my dream I were in Hell with endless heat and choking even waking I could not escape the terrors. The room were filled with smoke my brother Dan had disappeared so I opened the door to the hall and saw nothing but smothering fumes. Then Dan come running lost and terrified and coughing and bawling for his mother. I told him stop bawling or he would die of it. I shook Jem awake.