Читать книгу The Kelly Gang - George Wilson Hall - Страница 12

“Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak.”

– Shakespeare

Immediately after the unfortunate fracas with the police near Greta, Dan Kelly deemed it imperative to betake himself to hiding, and was soon joined by his brother Edward, both of them knowing that the evidence of one constable would outweigh the combined testimony of those who took part in the disturbance. They did not, nevertheless, leave the colony, nor did they fail often to visit their home and friends, until they had learned the result of the trial of their mother and the others.

It was on receiving news of her conviction that they made use of threats of reprisals; and then, mindful of the reward placed on the head of one and the warrant out against the other, they judiciously confined their wanderings, for the most part, to the almost impenetrable natural fastnesses of the Wombat Ranges, which lie about 16 to 17 miles N. and N.E. of Mansfield, and form part of the vast extent of mountainous country, stretching in a north-westerly direction from the head of the King River. They also took the precaution to make their visits to their friends, like those of angels, few and far between.

This vast tract occupies an area of many square miles, and the country is of an almost unimaginable impracticable nature, save to the few who have been accustomed to traverse its gloomy recesses since boyhood. The hills are steep, the woods pathless, and the gullies deep, dark, and winding; vast gorges, bounded by almost perpendicular ranges, surfaced with sharp and slippery shingles, monotonous in their outlines, and apparently of interminable extent, as well as ever recurring features, form a labyrinthine territory from the mazes of which the most experienced bushman might well despair of extricating himself. For, although the region is permeated sparsely by small streams and creeks, the difficulties attendant on following their courses continuously are almost insurmountable, from the precipitous and obstructed character of the sides in very many places, while the neighbourhood, for the most part, is covered with thick scrub, and encumbered frequently with huge rocks and enormous trunks of fallen trees; the impenetrability of the first being intensified by the interlacing of the Australian vine (so called).

There are also to be met with several vast and secluded caverns, so that, altogether, a more admirably adapted retreat for fugitives from the grasp of the law could not be conceived, provided the refugees were fortunate enough to have made arrangements with reliable and trustworthy friends for the due supply for such food as they would require, over and above meat, which the vicinity would plenteously afford, in the shape of wild cattle, wombat and wallaby.

The place is, however, open to one objection, from a strategetical point of view – namely in the matter of affording a rapid retreat, if necessary; and it is allowed, on all hands, that a good general, in choosing a position, should always take into consideration of being obliged to retire, and endeavour to arrange so that a retrograde movement, if indispensable, might be made with as little difficulty as possible, and, above all, with the greatest attainable rapidity, more especially in the face of overwhelming numbers.

For, although it would be possible for one acquainted with the locality to remain hidden in the bosom of the Wombat Ranges for years, still he might by some fatality be discovered – either betrayed by the greed of gold in someone to whom blood-money seemed as fair and lovely as riches from any other source, by his own carelessness, or by chance, in which case, although the scrub and vine curtain – provided he gained its shelter – might for a time hide him from the pursuer, yet it might probably prove advisable to take horse at once, and seek a temporary asylum elsewhere.

For such a race for life a good horse would be indispensable, and a corn-fed one at that; whereas the Wombat Ranges, near the best hiding places, are not sufficiently grassed to keep a horse even in fair, soft condition; and, besides, the appearance of a horse in the locality might lead to an unusually severe scrutiny of the surrounding neighbourhood.

Yet there is no doubt that the difficulty may, by some means, be got over, and most probably, indeed certainly, has been so by the Kelly gang, whose leader is too good a general to overlook the possibility of being sold, or, at least, an attempt being made in that direction, unless, indeed, the idea put forward had been true – that the gang had prepared a log fortress, victualled, properly loopholed, and cleared round of all shelter for besiegers, to which they could make their final retreat, and sell their lives as dearly as possible.

To this part of the country, then, the Kellys retired, with a view of avoiding the consequences of a charge which they professed to be unjust, and which is not generally believed to be, if not groundless, at least gravely exaggerated misstated.

Setting aside the horse-stealing charge, which has yet to be proved, and supposing, for the sake of argument, that, in the Fitzpatrick affair, the Kellys were more sinned against that sinning, what could be more natural than their seeking shelter from arrest, knowing the array they would have against them, and conscious that they would be powerless in the hands of their opponents?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of good men and true in this colony alone who would infinitely prefer freedom, though purchased with such a wild, harassing and comfortless life as that of the Kelly gang must be, to imprisonment for the better part of their existence, under the ban of a crime of which they were innocent.

The circumstances of the case, though, whether the charge be true or otherwise, afford not the least excuse for the highly injudicious, not to say barbarous, course subsequently adopted by the band in regard to the police. As was inferred previously, the refugees still occasionally visited and were visited by some of their more intimate friends, who, out of (illegal) kindness and sympathy, supplied them with rations, and information as to the movements of the police, as far as they could be ascertained. This was admitted on all hands to be extremely improper, reprehensible, and totally contrary to law; yet a few seemed to think, and still fewer ventured to say, that it was extremely natural for these misguided people to be ruled by their affections, regardless of public opinion, which guides most persons, and the majesty of the law, which awes a great number, and to persist in affording assistance to the wanderers, in defiance of both.

We refer here to the period of time during which the Kellys were charged with what, in comparison with their subsequent terrible acts, was a mere bagatelle; afterwards this sort of assistance was confined to those more near connections, who, while they condemned their conduct, could not be expected to utterly banish all human feelings of commiseration for the hunted outlaws.

Before long, Ned and Dan decided that they ought to adopt some means of recruiting their finances, which were down to zero, as they did not like being a drain of the resource of others; so, after taking a spell at fencing in the neighbourhood of the Merrijig, in a remote locality, bordering on, but to the south-east of their position, and some ten miles from their actual haunt, they made up their minds to try their fortune at gold digging in the heart of the mountains they had chosen for their retreat, where two parties of adventurous diggers had previously done reasonably well.

This seems to throw considerable doubt upon the report that they intention was to enter on a course of highway robbery through the country. Accordingly, in company with two mates, named Joseph Byrne and Stephen Hart, they commenced digging – or, rather, sluicing operations on a small stream not very distant from the Stringy-bark Creek, which they persevered in for some time, with the ordinary fluctuations of luck incidental to that industry.

Sufficient gold, however, was obtained periodically, not only to procure the necessaries they required during the portion of their withdrawal from the busy world, but also to lay in supplies, which they – cached in various spots, with a view to future contingencies. They also constructed a good log hut near the site of their operations, which they fitted up with the ordinary conveniences of bush life, and carefully loopholed in case of an attack. Of course the law, and the reward offered for Ned Kelly, demanded their pursuit and arrest; but it is sad to think that, had it been compatible with that law to ignore their existence during their voluntary exile, as it were, from civilization, and had the temptation of the glittering reward been removed, the sacrifice of three valuable lives, which plunged two families into unutterable grief, might have been avoided, and four wretched men might have escaped being involved in the crime of willful and deliberate murder.

From the fact of Byrne and Hart (though they had been “in trouble” on some trifling charges on various occasions) not being actually “wanted” by the police at the time they went into partnership with the Kellys, it may justly be inferred that they did not join them with the design of anticipation of participating in any act whereby their liberties or lives might be jeopardized or forfeited. Indeed, it was though by some that their presence at the deplorable tragedy of the 26th October was accidental, or, at any rate, they had no prevision of the terrible ending of the bloody encounter.

Be it as it may, they are now as guilty in the eye of the inexorable law as though they had planed and executed the slaughter unaided and alone.