Читать книгу The Kelly Gang - George Wilson Hall - Страница 7

“Small habits, well pursued, betimes

May reach the dignity of crimes.”

– Butler

The published assertion that the younger Kellys were brought up as thieves by their father is altogether without foundation in fact, whatever boyish depredations they may have indulged in having been carried out on their “own hook”, and without the concurrence of their parents.

Some of the stories that have been circulated since their entry upon a career of murder and robbery, purportion to illustrative of their juvenile escapades, are not only, as far as we can learn by inquiry, totally unsustainable by any kind of evidence, but many of them amusingly incredible in their details.

One selection will amply serve as an average example of the ridiculous and contemptible rubbish they are composed of. It is, in outline, as follows, and the minor details may be made to vary according to the fancy or inventive capacity of each retailer of the anecdote:–

In the outskirts of a village not a hundred miles from Avenel, through which the younger Kellys, when boys, were in the habit of passing, there dwelt – in a humble cottage – neatly furnished, and situated in a nice little orchard – an elderly widowed female with an only son, who, though she had a comfortable little income secured to her, sufficient for the ordinary wants of a person in her station, yet felt like the old woman in the almshouse, who, while admitting to the visiting clergyman the many mercies, including tea and snuff, she had to thank Heaven for, qualified her expression of gratitude by declaring that the Lord took it out of herin corns.

Now, the dame in our story suffered a counterpoise to her blessings in the shape of a chronic rheumatism, and – jointly with her young hopeful, who was an embryo shoemaker with a club foot – a constant dread that the larrikins and larrikinesses of the neighbourhood would make a ride upon her garden, to the loss of the

Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs

Yielded them, sidelong, as they sat

and by the sale of which she was wont to supplement her modest revenue, and thus was enabled, not only to put by a penny for a rainy day, but also to indulge in sundry extras of feminine adornment as well as table comforts, otherwise beyond her reach. For age could not altogether wither her vanity, nor custom stale the infinite variety her palate craved continually.

She might have made a much better market of her produce than she did, had she but established, as she was often advised, a little fruit stall in the village, on the borders of which she hung; but, alas! her rheumatism and, above all, her conceit, forbade her presiding over so unassuming a Temple of Pomons, and her son, though even more grasping than his ma, also permitted his vanity to overcome his avarice in a similar manner, and indignantly refused all entreaties to become what he flippantly designated “book-keeper to an apple-stand”. As to engaging a regular “fruiterer’s assistant” on a small scale, it was altogether out of the question, because they believed, not only that the legitimate expenses would more than swallow up the probable profits, but also that their deputy would be sure to rob them when he got a chance. The latter theory they held, for various reasons best known to themselves, in connection with any and everyone who might have an opportunity of being profitably dishonest without detection. This well-assorted pair, moreover, affected the sentimental, and professed, as well as persuaded themselves, that they were ardent admirers of Byron’s, Moore’s, Longfellows, and Tennyson’s poems, extracts from which, by turns, the son used dutifully to read to his parents during the evenings, for, sooth to say, her eyesight was not as good as in the palmy days of her youth. She, therefore, for this and many other reasons, had cause to congratulate herself that the lad had enjoyed considerable educational advantages, which he was not loth to display. There was one poem on particular of Tennyson’s that seemed to possess a strange and horrible attraction for them, namely, “Walking to the Mail”, but which, nevertheless, they seem to shudder at when that part was reached commencing – “There lived a dayflint near; we stole his fruit”. This, though, has nothing to do with the point of the story.

One day a young lad, or boy, of the neighbourhood, who was slowly recovering from a long and severe attack of Ophthalmia, and was still half blind, happened to wheel an infant sister of his to the dame’s garden, in a little perambulator, improvised from a gin case, on four wooden wheels, in order to keep a promise of “shouting” threepennyworth of plums for that interesting innocent. Suddenly, after weighing out the fruit and pocketing the coppers, an inspiration seemed to strike the proprietor of the Eden, and she said, “What are you doing now, Jim?” “Nothink, please marm”, replied the youth; “the doctor says as ‘ow I haint to do nothin’ till my Heyes is well”. “Well, Jim”, rejoined the artful she, “I can give you an easy job that won’t hurt your eyes, if you like; you might as well be wheeling fruit as flesh and blood, you know, and if you like to hawk some of this fruit round for sale, I’ll give you – let me see – I’ll give you, well, a penny out of every shilling of your takings – no credit mind, all cash.” Now, if Jim had been a vulgar boy, or addressing one of the common inhabitants of the place, he would probably have said, “It’s a whack, ole gal; I’m on”. But such not being the case, he politely observed, “Thankee, marm, I’ll be hup to-morrer mornin’ hearly; ‘taint much, I know, but its better nor nothin’”. And as he turned to go, the widow, by way of clinching the bargain, cut a small slice off a little apple she had commenced peeling, and handing it to him, said, “All right, don’t forget, like a good boy. So long.” Like a good boy, sure enough, the industrious Jim put in an early appearance the following morning, and, when the fruit had been weighed out, to the half ounce, he received his instructions as to the most likely places to call at, and the different prices to ask at each. Then, as Jim was starting to make his first essay as a commission agent, the son of the house came along and said, “Look here, Jim, we’ll deduct the value of any fruit you lose, or can’t account for, from your profits, at selling price, that’s all”. Jim started in excellent spirits; but – alas for the vanity of all human aspirations – at the bottom of a hill, on an unfrequented part of the road to the village, two of the Kellys met him, and seeing that he was helpless and smaller than themselves, they agreed to attack and spoil him at once. Jim showed what fight he could, but soon had to yield to superior numbers, weight, age, and eyesight. The highwayboys then, after rolling him in the dust and kicking him severely, took as much fruit as they could eat and carry, and upsetting the “convaniency”, kicked the reminder about the road, leaving the weeping costermonger to collect the debris, if worth it, and calculate how long it would take him to make good the loss at his moderate percentage of remuneration. What made the act more atrocious was that the Kellys were on intimate terms with the widow and her son.

This is the story as detailed to us, but without any attempt to make us believe it; on the other hand, it was laid before us for the same reason as we venture to present it to the reader – namely, as a sample of what inconceivable “rot” can be invented, and what absurdly improbable and inhuman acts can be attributed even to boys, under certain circumstances, just as celebrated wits have jests and bon mots fathered on them, which they not only did not originate, but, in all probability, never even heard.