True History of the Kelly Gang (6 page)

The Kelly girls was accommodated in the next room so bringing Dan along I picked up little Kate and hollered to the others they must flee. Annie needed no 2nd bidding she went flying up the hallway like a white chook in her nightie. Maggie wore nothing but a pair of bloomers she tried to rescue Dan but he wouldnt leave my side though his skinny chest were shook with coughing. We once more entered the infernal hallway as my cousins come running past reporting the back of the house were all on fire. We caught up with Annie at my mother’s door it were locked we would need an axe to break it down. Then thank God my mother come out. She tried to give Grace to me so she could return for her tin box. I don’t know what were in that box no more than scissors and reels of cotton but I do know she would of died for it. I ordered her to take the children and I would rescue her treasure from her room. With some diffifculty I found the box but by then the smoke were too hot and thick in the hallway so I retreated to the room where I discovered the window sash were jammed. Thinking I would die I budged the sash enough to squeeze out into the night air. It were a beautiful night the moon high the summer paddocks white as snow.

Looking for my mother I discovered instead my Uncle James gazing blearily at the burning laundry wall he were staggering drunk and careless of the fflames licking all around him. I tried to lead him away but his eyes were shining and he pushed me violently against the chest. Stumbling I saw him pitch his drink into the fifre but even witnessing the rush of fflame I were slow to understand his glass were full of parafffin. My uncle were burning down the house and did not care who knew it. Now he rushed off into the dark and come back with pine palings to pitch into the blazing laundry.

Having no time to worry what damage he might do me I ran at him head down and as he were now v. drunk I tipped him over as easy as a sleeping cow. He cursed me and limped off again into the dark then returned with more fuel so I picked up a handy length of lead pipe and approached him swinging it above my head. The old arsonist could do naught but retreat before me.

The windows was cracking suspended in a rage of heat. I picked up the tin box to give chase but lost him as the entire west wall dissolved in fflame. I opened the door to the chook house but it were too late the rooster and his wives was lying dead upon the earth our dairy cows come ffleeing past me their big eyes was dancing with reflfected fifre.

Finally I found Mother out on the road and all the children safe beside her. I give her the tin box just as Constable Sheehan rode up with his pyjamas visible beneath his uniform.

So what is happening?

It were a very stupid question anyone could see the roof were about to fall. The policeman jerked his head at the stranger who was standing on the road with my frightened brother Dan captive in his freckled arms.

Who’s that?

This is James Kelly says my mother. He has burnt our efffing home down or words to that effect.

The following day our family were dispersed like ash upon the wind my mother taking the littlies 20 mi. away to the town of Wangaratta where she hoped for some type of job. Me and Jem was left behind to work as labourers for our aunts.

Before imprisonment our uncles had selected land out at Fifteen Mile Creek and now there were no choice for their wives but move out there immediately and set to clearing and fencing and performing all the back-breaking tasks which are the poor selector’s lot. Jack and Jimmy Quinn come to assist their sisters get back on their feet and it were them that built the hut we was to sleep in. True they was kind enough at nighttime when the grog was talking but they was very hard men and brooked no laziness around the property. My brother Jem were only 9 yr. old and brung back homework every night from Greta School but were still required to split the firewood and carry pollard and mash for the pigs and many other chores too numerous to mention. We could do no more than curse and swear beneath our breath we had not come to the North East to work as slaves but to possess our own land we could walk on from breakfast until we saw the last kookaburra marking its boundary across the evening sky. We left Avenel expecting we would soon have sleek black cattle and big rumped long necked horses I had imagined them horses most particular in the picture they would make thundering across our plain.

Our aunts was not unkind neither and kept saying our mother would soon make some money but then admitted she were taking in laundry in Wangaratta so we could no longer sustain our hopes.

O how I did hate James Kelly for stealing our destiny from us and I would lie on the hessian bunk with my brother’s bare feet in my face and him and me would comfort ourselves by inventing gruesome punishments for our uncle scalding him and flogging him and dragging him behind a speeding horse. My daughter you will grow to count the days till it is Christmas morning and then you will know exactly how Jem and me reckoned the time to the Autumn Assizes when James Kelly would be assigned his fate.

The Assizes was held in Beechworth. There were much higher country to the south and east but no one could see that from Beechworth for there the law did sit in pomp and majesty and there were no higher place than its own elevated opinion. Of course the town fed off all the sweat and labour of the miners and the poor selectors on the plains below but in those grand stone buildings they could bankrupt or hang you as they pleased. They had a courthouse & prison & hospital plus 4 banks & 2 breweries & 15 hotels.

It were here I reunited with my mother as she descended from the Wangaratta Coach she wore a bright blue silk dress and a bustle and a mighty hat that towered above her head. I were most surprised to see how prosperous she looked.

You grown out of them britches she said.

I didnt understand how she could profit so well from laundry but knew better than to question her directly. In any case we rushed to court and I entered that cool limey building like it were a church my hat removed my head were bowed. I had not seen a Judge until that day and when we was told to rise I done so. When he come to the bench I never knew he would be my enemy for life I seen his wig and his bright red robes and he were a Cardinal to my eyes his skin all white and waxy as if he were a precious foreign object kept contained in cotton wool.

Justice Redmond Barry looked down on the crowded court with hooded eyes we all went quiet even the Lloyds and Quinns could feel his power to harm them.

The traps then brought up Uncle James from the cells he were all skin bone and misery as pitiful a creature as a plucked cockatoo and when he caught my eye he flinched away. It were not so easy to keep hating him when he were called into the dock.

My mother then give her information speaking her mind even when the Judge told her not to. After she were finished the Judge listened to Cons Sheehan read aloud from his notebook. Then the Judge addressed Uncle James and asked did he wish to say anything in his defence.

I will marry Mrs Kelly.

But do you have anything to say in your defence?

Yes I will marry her.

And that is all?

Yes your honour.

Then I will pronounce sentence. Justice Redmond Barry took a square black cloth and placed it over his head.

Mother were now moaning I thought she were upset by this proposal but then I heard the Judge say that Uncle James were to be taken away and hung until dead and I watched the old boy’s mouth open and saw his tongue flick around the corners. His frightened eyes looking out towards us we watched in horror while they took him down.

When we come out of court the women was weeping but Jem and me was silent sick with shame to have our wish come true.

After the death sentence my mother were red eyed and the worse for drink she caught a night coach back to the rented rooms in Wangaratta and what them rooms was like I cannot say. A mother can have no secrets in a settler’s hut she cannot so much as break wind and all her children must hear what she has done but now she were far away from Fifteen Mile Creek and no longer could I guess her life. I were told she took laundry and perhaps she did but I am sure she only did what she must do. She had a mother and father and brothers and sisters but in the end she were a poor widow and she had 7 children and all of them was alarmed and unsettled by their lives. Dan peed his bed and Annie’s bones ached at her knees and when she run they made a click. Nor were I too shy to tell my mother the misery that come of being her sisters’ slave.

I didnt know I had grown 2 in. and thought my Aunt Kate were boiling my clothes too hard for they now was cutting into my crutch and tight across my chest but all I knew were that an unpaid Agricultural Labourer went hungry and weary from dawn to dusk.

I were sitting in the outhouse at Fifteen Mile Creek one August morning that is 4 mo. since Uncle James were sentenced I heard a rider approaching at a gallop but I didnt think much of it for all the Quinns and Lloyds was flashy riders they was lairs and larrikins and they would put on a show or jump a fence as soon as blow their nose. I sat in the stinky dark and did my business listening to the horse trot round the hut and a woman’s voice hooing hahing and then I heard my name being called impatiently. I were peeved that I could not get a moment to myself I come stumbling from the dunny tugging at my braces as my buttons would not do up no more.

It were my mother wheeling around me the morning sun behind her I saw her dress were some fancy silk or satin it were a new and brilliant red. Land ho she cried.

She wore no hat but her black hair were braided and her face flushed and her black eyes bright and she sat astride her handsome chestnut mare with her skirts rucked up to show her smooth bare knees. Land ho she cried we got our land.

I looked to the new dairy and saw skinny Aunt Kate and buxom Jane they was standing at the door and Aunt Kate were frowning and Aunt Jane were smiling to see this vision of their sister splendid as a queen. Just then Jem come mooching out from behind the woodheap where he had been hiding but seeing the visitor he run up to the mare he got a grip on the horse’s kneebone between his big toe and his 2nd toe and with that stirrup he sprung upon our mother’s lap. He had missed her company very bad.

I asked what were the rent and she kissed Jem on his head and neck then wheeled her horse around. No rent she cried it is selected I give the money order to the Land Office last night at 5 o’clock it is our own own land my darling boys.

Where Ma where is it?

You’ll see she cried for we’re off to live there now.

Today?

This very adjectival minute.

I had never thought I would be happy again but a 1/2 hr. later having give Jem my saddle I were galloping bareback towards our destiny. I were still only 13 yr. and my mother were a young woman not much over 30 and she thundered past us through the cutting tearing down the white clay track with a low fog wrapped around her knees. Then we come along by the narrow little creek the blades of sunlight falling through the foliage and there were a hut surrounded by a stand of dead white ringbarked trees and I seen the slab wall and the rough battens and the steam rising off its damp bark roof and I could not know that this were the very site where you would one day be conceived.

My 6 yr. old brother Dan raced out its open door he had no clothes upon his lower self and sturdy laughing Maggie were behind him and they chased towards us through the sun drenched mist and then I knew this were my home my heart were bursting I jumped off my horse and scooped the laughing naked boy into my arms.

My mother’s selection were 3 mi. from Greta it bordered the Eleven Mile Creek from which the district takes its name. Section 57A was one of 5 blocks of roughly equal size it were lightly timbered near the track but soon the bush were very thick all flat and clayey then elevating slightly to the south running up between the 2 arms of Futter’s Range in a wide basin.

88 acres were less than I had imagined though my mother chose it not for its acreage but for the great commercial advantage of having a hut already constructed and adjacent to a public thoroughfare. The morning Jem and I arrived she had already set up a barrel of brandy and purchased 2 doz. clear glass bottles and a gross of corks she were in the way of running a little shebeen. Of course it were illegal to sell grog without a govt. licence but she must do what she must do and this were the only way to fund the improvement of a property all still unfenced and uncleared.

I caught Dan and helped Maggie get his britches on while my mother give Jem the reins and went in the hut. Next thing I knew the red dress were gone and replaced by a shirt and pr. of men’s trousers tied up with rope. She then said we must all get to work and help her build a cockatoo fence to keep the dairy cows contained of a night. Once that were done we could bring the little herd across from Fifteen Mile Creek and begin to have income from our butter which were bringing 2⁄– per lb. at that time.

I had not been on the land 2 hr. before I had felled a mighty gum tree the parrots squawking with alarm and a baby possum dead upon the ground. My sisters Kate and Grace buried it beside the creek but neither my mother nor the older children had no time for sentiment we all was slaving even Annie despite her never liking to get her hands dirty.

At the end of the day the fence were still not completed but my family had witnessed my new strength and they knew I could be the man. I were v. tired as anyone would be. I didnt do none of the children’s chores and sat in the last of the sunshine using the wet stone on my axe. Annie should of been busy with her mother but instead called to me she found a yabby in the creek. I told her to fetch a bit of bacon rind and a length of string we took it down to the creek and I instructed her how to tie the bait I were not surprised she didnt watch.

Tell her not to sell the grog.

I saw there werent no yabby nowhere that she had practised a deception in order to speak to me alone.

They’ll arrest her for the grog she said and then they’ll send us to the industrial school. This were typical of her she were always the same.