Читать книгу The Kelly Gang - George Wilson Hall - Страница 5

“Now lithe and listen, gentles all,

The while I do unfold

The parentage and eke the deeds

Of Rob, the outlaw bold;

And how he drove the keepers

By mountain, moor and glen;

And how he held the forest, free,

With all his lusty men.”

- Old Ballad

If imitation be truly described as the sincerest flattery, surely we may also assume it to be a mark of the most genuine admiration; hence, being totally incapable of producing anything remotely approaching his style, we cannot be said to go far astray in adopting the plan followed by one of England’s most celebrated classical authors, Henry Fielding, when composing the life of “JONATHAN WILD, THE GREAT”, which plan is thus referred to in one of the introductory chapters to the work;–

It is the custom of all biographers, at their entrance into their work, to step a little backwards (as far indeed as they are able), and to trace up their hero, as the ancients did the river Nile, till an incapacity of proceeding higher puts an end to their search.

What first gave rise to this method is somewhat difficult to determine. But whatever origin this custom had, it is now too well established to be disputed. I shall therefore conform to it in the strictest manner.

At the latter end of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, a family of the name of Quin, numbering eight persons, and hailing from the neighbourhood of Belfast, Ireland, landed on the shores of Hobson’s Bay, from the good ship England, having come out as Government emigrants, with a view to bettering their condition at Port Phillip, which at that time was looked on by the inhabitants of the “Old Country” almost as terra incognita.

The family consisted of James and Mary Quin, the parents, with six children – namely, Patrick, who was afterwards accidentally drowned at Echuca, in 1850; Mary Anne, since deceased; John; Ellen, destined to give birth to the outlawed Kellys; Katherine and Jane.

The Quins, on their arrival, settled in what is the Melbourne of the present day, and remained there for some short time, the father supporting his family by working as a porter at different commercial establishments, until, by frugality and industry, he succeeded in accumulating sufficient funds to enable him to rent some land, and make a purchase of a few milch cows and bullocks. His first venture was on a small farm at Brunswick, where, in a limited hut comfortable homestead, Mrs Quin carried on the business of dairying to a profitable extent, while her husband added to the domestic store from the profits of carting with his bullocks on the roads, and cultivating a moderate portion of his holding.

After a short time, having prospered reasonably well in his undertakings, he shifted to Broadmeadows, where he rented 1,280 acres of land, which he devoted to grazing and cultivation purposes; and the sons, Patrick and John, being by this time old enough to take charge of his teams, he was enabled to turn his undivided attention to the engagement of the farm.

Before this, the number of his children had been increased by nine, by the successive births of William, Margaret and Grace.

After a few years of renumerated industry in this locality, he removed his quarters to a section of land (640 acres), at the head of the Merri Creek, near Wallan-Wallan, which he rented from a man name James Cameron, and upon which, with increased stock, he continued his previous occupations, carrying on the dairy operations in a far more extensive way; prosperity, as before, attending his efforts. The neighbourhood at the time was known as Kemp’s Swamp.

Shortly after breaking out of the diggings, in 1851, he was enobled, in consequence of the increased value of stock, and other reasons, to purchase 700 acres adjoining his holding, and partly situated where the Wallan-Wallan railway station now stands, and here he continued to pursue his usual vocations, with the addition of dealing in and breeding horses and cattle.

He remained on this property until the year 1865, and, with the remaining portion of his family, was universally respected – he and they were in their former locations – for honesty, industry and kindness, Mrs Quin being especially an object of sincere regard, on account of the unwearying and profuse hospitality she used to display, not only to her friends and aquaintances, but also to every tired, indignant, or benighted wayfaring stranger who might call at her door. Indeed, she carried this comparatively rare and admirable propensity, almost to the verge of what might be termed a weakness, and was continued, we are informed, to act the good Samaritan whenever occasion demanded, as far as in her power lay, up to the date of the present memoir, so that we may reasonably conclude the amiable peculiarity will not cease to influence her during the remainder of her earthly career.

In 1865, however, desiring to become owner of a squatting station, Quin, having sold his Wallan-Wallan property to considerable advantage, purchased a run at the head of the King River, to which he transferred his large stock of cattle, horses, brood mares, &c. – a spot that afterwards became famous as the place near which Power, the bushranger, was captured while asleep in his gunyah.

Not many years after the purchase – about 1869 – James Quin died; and shortly afterwards, the sons having disposed of the station, the remaining members became scattered, Mrs. Quin finding a home with a married daughter, with whom she now resides.

We must now request our readers to accompany us retrospectively and imaginatively to Donnybrook, near the Merri Creek, in the year 1849, with a view to the introduction of the father of the outlawed Kellys.

John Kelly, better known as “Red Kelly”, in contradistinction to a man who rejoiced in the soubriquet of “Black Kelly”, and to whom he was not in any way related, arrived, not very long before the time above indicated, from Tasmania, on the completion of his sentence, to which hell-ipon-earth for convicts he had been transported from Ireland for a term of fifteen years.

He was a native of the Emerald Isle, having been born and reared in that particular county which the poet described in the following laudatory strain:–

“The sweetest sod that e’er was trod

By Sassenach or fairy;

Show me the land that can compare

With darlint Tipperary.”

And it may not, therefore, prove so much a matter of surprise to learn that his enforced expatriation originated in a charge of being concerned either in a faction fight or some other affray at a fair, during which one of the combatants, as was not at all unusual in those days, came to an untimely end.

The illegal act, however, on account of which he was banished beyond the seas, would not in any country, even now, be ranked in the category of disgraceful crimes, much less in a part of the world where it would have been viewed by the country people in a more harmless light than the permanent removal of a tyrannical and obnoxious landlord, a bailiff, a process-server, a gauger, or an informer – the last of whom would occupy, in public estimation, a place immeasurably lower than the Melbourne professional hangman and flagellator, the notorious Gately, does among the Victorian population. In this colony, moreover, he was subsequently convicted of being in unlawful possession of certain beef, for which he failed to satisfactorily account, and for this received a sentence of six months’ imprisonment, which he suffered.

It is our duty, as faithful chroniclers, to state the noticeable fact that this John Kelly was always, in this colony at any rate, remarked as a rather timid man, averse to quarrelling, and ever prone to act the part of a peacemaker when he saw others engaged in any altercation calculated to lead to violence.

These, notwithstanding the many accusations with which his memory has been so freely bespattered, are the only two charges that have been brought home to him. It is, therefore, fully in accordance with the British principles of justice to give him the benefit of any doubt that can exist as to whatever delinquencies have been asserted or inferred to his prejudice. At any rate, about the period we are writing of, John or “Red” Kelly was engaged in splitting and fencing, near the Merri Creek, and chancing to be in a hotel at Donnybrook, in the vicinity of James Quin’s residence, enjoying the customary relaxation after a hard week’s work, he for the first time encountered the latter individual, with whom he dropped into conversation over a friendly nobbler.

During the progress of their discourse, the subject of the manufacture of illicit whisky was brought on the board and duly discussed, Kelly informing his colloquist that he was fully and practically acquainted with the art and mystery of distillation. At last, after eloquently expatiating on the certain profits derivable from that industry, and argumentatively pointing out the immunity from discovery offered by the features of the neighbouring ranges, he proposed that Quin should go into partnership with him in the purchase and working of a “jigger still”.

To this proposition Quin, as on several future occasions, steadily refused to lend an ear; but the meeting of the evening was the commencement of an intimacy which finally gained Kelly admission, on the grounds of acquaintanceship, to the farmer’s home. Shortly afterwards, some of the neighbouring residents, whose avarice was tickled by the golden prospects held out, and really believed in, by Kelly, joined him in the bush-whiskey speculation, with the speedy and almost inevitable result of complete failure of the venture.

Within a brief space following the meeting at the hotel, Kelly commenced to pay his addresses to Ellen Quin, but altogether in opposition to the wishes of her parents, who, not considering him a desirable match, refused him point blank when he asked their permission to marry their daughter. But this denial did not practically carry that weight with it which, theoretically, such rejections are supposed to do; for the suitor, with the address and impetuosity of a true Irishman in love-making, soon brought the object of his affections to consent to a runaway match, and, on the day following their elopement to Melbourne, they were there irrevocably joined in the bonds of holy wedlock.

On their return to the Merri Creek, the old folks, sensibly recognizing the futility of making any fuss about so every-day an occurrence, forgave the delinquents, but instead of inviting them to take up the residence under the parental roof, they permitted their newly-acquired son-in-law, who was an expert bush-carpenter, to erect a dwelling for himself and wife on a portion of their land.

Here, in the snug little hut, the young couple resided until the breaking out of the diggings, the husband pursuing his adopted calling of splitter and fencer.

Ellen Kelly (nee Quin)