The Hunt for Ned Kelly

by Sophie Masson

‘You look like you need a hand, Miss. Or a shoulder or two,’ said the fair one, tipping his hat to Ellen. He had a merry look about his blue eyes.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘We would be very much obliged. Lorna! Let the gentlemen pass.’

  ‘Lorna?’ said the dark one, as the dog trotted to my side and stood there, tongue hanging out, eyes still watchful. ‘An unusual name for a dog.’

  ‘I named her after my favourite heroine,’ I said proudly, as the two young men took off their jackets, rolled up their shirt-sleeves and prepared to put their shoulders to the buggy.

  ‘Oh, she is mine too,’ he said, and smiled. He had a soft voice with a burr in it and a quieter look about him than his friend. His hazel eyes were as watchful as Lorna’s, and steady; his well-cut dark beard with the ginger streaks in it reminded me of Pa’s, which was exactly the same colour and shape. But he was bigger than Pa, much broader, taller and stronger, and though his friend beside him looked slim as strung wire, between them they easily heaved that blessed vehicle out of the hole and back onto the track. They examined it then and the dark one pronounced it sound and nothing broken. They helped us load the things back on and put Laddie back in harness.

  Then the fair one asked what we were doing on this lonely track. Ellen said we had thought it a shortcut to Mansfield. ‘Oh, it’s not that, Miss,’ he said, and she said we realised that now and were trying to double back when the accident happened.

  ‘It is too late to get to Mansfield now,’ said the dark one, ‘but we will set you on your way. There are good camping places along the main road.’

  Ellen said quickly, ‘Sir, you are so very kind—and my brother and I would be so very much obliged if you would do that—but we inconvenience you and …’

  ‘Oh, no, not at all, Miss … er …’ He waited, and Ellen understood.

  Blushing, she said, ‘Forgive me. Our name is Ross. Ellen and Jamie Ross.’

  ‘Well, Miss Ross,’ he said cheerfully, ‘my name’s Thompson, and my friend’s here is Cook, and we are pleased to help, so you must not worry about it. Now let’s get you on the right road.’

  We were soon out of that track and back onto the road and they showed us where we ought to go, and pointed out a good camping-place. Mr Thompson asked us if we were joining family in Mansfield, or moving there on our own, and I blurted out no, we were going to Wangaratta where Ellen was to start a job as a governess with a rich squatting family called Rochester. Mr Cook said thoughtfully, ‘Rochester? They must be new to the district.’

  ‘Oh, are you from Wangaratta, sir?’ said Ellen quickly. Her voice sounded a bit odd.

  He shook his head. ‘No. But Mr Thompson and I know it well. We go there often, don’t we, Thompson?’

  The dark one shrugged, and smiled. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ellen lamely.

  I said excitedly, ‘Sir, if you go often to Wangaratta, you might know—I heard a trooper say that the Kelly gang was sighted near Wangaratta. Is it true?’

  Ellen gave me a cross glare. ‘Jamie! What sort of rude and silly question is that to ask these gentlemen! How would they know?’

  But Mr Cook laughed. ‘No, no, Miss Ross, it is quite all right. Quite the talk of the town, these Kelly boys, aren’t they? I’d say for my part that the trooper didn’t know what he was saying. But I could be wrong. What would you do, young Master Ross, if you spotted them yourself on the road to Wangaratta? Would you be frightened?’

  ‘I do not know for sure, Mr Cook,’ I said, honestly, ‘but I do not think I would be. I do not think they would hurt me.’

  ‘But are they not wild beasts as merciless as tigers, as venomous as black snakes?’ Mr Thompson spoke calmly but I thought I saw a sudden anger in his eyes.

  I flushed and stammered, ‘Sir, I do not know if what people say is true—and I think they did wrong shooting those policemen in Mansfield last year—but maybe they did not mean to—and in those raids in Euroa and Jerilderie, they killed no-one and hurt no-one and …’ I trailed off, thinking now I was for it.

  But before Mr Thompson could say anything, Ellen broke in, tartly saying, ‘What Jamie means, Mr Thompson, is that we would not be frightened, for we are not such as would be of any account or interest or threat to the Kelly gang. They are not ordinary dark-of-the-night snatch-and-grabbers, but after much bigger game. What could they want with a penniless girl and her brother?’

  ‘Sure and what indeed?’ said Mr Cook, looking at her with a twinkle in his eye, so that she blushed.

  I was astonished, for I had never heard her express more than one word on the topic. And grateful too, for she had taken my part and not scolded me in front of these strangers.

  They left us very soon after, politely accepting our renewed thanks, and we set to making our camp. As we gathered wood and made damper, I noticed Ellen was looking thoughtful, almost dreamy, and I remembered Mr Cook’s smile and wondered if she hoped she might meet him again in Wangaratta. As to me, I was very grateful to our two new friends for saving us, but I was aware I had blundered and said things I should not. I think that in these parts I must watch my tongue more than I have an inclination to.

  On the road, July 31

  Not much has happened in the days since I last wrote in this diary. We made it to Mansfield the next day and stayed the night there and were able to provision ourselves to continue our journey. It was very cold and we were glad to be in shelter. I saw some children skating on the pond, for it had frozen over!

  In the window of the Mansfield Guardian there was a picture of the four policemen who were taken by surprise by the Kellys in the bush at Stringybark Creek, and a notice of a fund set up for the widows and orphans of the three men who were killed. It said that Sergeant Kennedy had six children, the eldest two years younger than me. It gave me a shock and made me think of what a terrible thing it must be for them. Your pa goes out one morning into the bush and by the end of the day he is lying in his own blood, shot to death. It is not like my pa who was so ill and died slowly over many awful months, but sudden and violent and no time to say goodbye. Whatever the Kellys thought they were doing in that place, and whether or not they meant to shoot those police, they still took a father from his children and long before his time, and I cannot ever think well of them for that.

  We left Mansfield early and travelled on, heading for Benalla through lightly wooded country with the occasional farm or little village. Nothing happened of any importance. The buggy stayed upright and Laddie plodded on, we met a few other travellers along the way but did not stop to talk, and we made camp at night. But I did not feel like writing, only a little reading, and sleeping. Both Ellen and I are getting very tired. I have wished heartily more than once that my sister had not been so proud and set against borrowing money for the train fare, for we would have been at Wangaratta by now and not still on the road. But tomorrow we should be in Benalla and from there it is not too far to Wangaratta and then—well, I do not know how far it is to the Rochesters’ and what welcome I shall find there, but at least we will have found journey’s end.

  Benalla, August 1

  Not much to report. There were lots of troopers in Benalla, for the police headquarters for the north-east district are here. I even saw some black native police. They have come from Queensland and they are skilled at reading even the slightest of tracks, even the tiniest, tiniest sign that anyone has been past. Only through water can you escape their frightening skills. They have tracked down many wanted men. I have heard they have crosses notched on their rifles to show how many. People say the Kelly gang are very good bushmen, but the black trackers are better still. I suppose the gang must ride through streams a lot and avoid soft earth and things like that. I wonder what they must feel, hunted like savage beasts, like the tigers Mr Thompson spoke of. And then it seems to me it may not be quite so fine as I thought, living in the wild hills and looking over your shoulder all the time in case your trail is being sniffed out by human bloodhounds.
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br />   One other thing—I bought a pamphlet about Ned Kelly in a shop in Benalla. It’s really interesting, because it tells the story not in the usual way but through extracts from newspapers, beginning a long time ago, way before I was born, right up to the raid at Euroa earlier this year. I read it all tonight and I’m pasting it here, because I don’t want to lose it.

  Wangaratta, August 4

  I still cannot believe it. I still cannot credit what Ellen has done. I did not have an inkling of suspicion, not one, not really. Though now I come to think of it, there were signs all along that something was not quite right, and doubts murkily swimming in the very bottom of my mind, like low-lurking fish. But if I am honest they never really came up to the top of my thoughts. I thought she might have been telling less than the truth about the Rochesters wanting me too, but I was as keen to get out of Melbourne as she was and I certainly never dreamed that—

  But let me go back to the beginning.

  We made good progress from Benalla to Wangaratta and reached the town just before dark. We found a suitable inn, and Ellen went off, she said to post a letter to Uncle Will to inform him we had arrived safely. I was left to get Laddie stabled and fed and so on. She did not come back for an hour or more. By this time I was dozing on my bed, Lorna snoring on the floor beside me. Like me, she was still exhausted from all those days on the road.

  Ellen came in all in a rush. Her eyes shone greener than usual and her cheeks were red. She said, ‘We start tomorrow morning, Jamie, bright and early, you understand?’

  I was still half-asleep. I said, ‘Are the Rochesters coming to fetch us?’

  She laughed. ‘I doubt it.’

  I sat up, staring at her. ‘What?’

  ‘As the Rochesters only exist in a book, I doubt it.’

  This time I was wide awake. ‘Are you mad? What are you saying?’

  ‘The Rochesters don’t exist,’ she said coolly.

  I was speechless.

  ‘I thought you’d guess long ago, Jamie. You who’s always got your nose in a book!’

  ‘What? But I …’

  She pulled a book out of her bundle, which was lying on the other bed. It was one of her favourites, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. I hadn’t read it. I said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Jane goes to be a governess in a house belonging to Mr Rochester,’ she said, impatiently flicking back her black hair.

  ‘You mean … But … You said you answered their advertisement—you—you got a letter from them, offering …’ I was stammering, unable to believe my ears or my eyes.

  She shrugged.

  ‘You wrote that letter?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So there is no job on the Rochester station?’

  She nodded again. ‘No advertisement. No job. No Rochester station. No Rochesters.’ She laughed.

  I gaped at her. ‘But—but why, Ellen?’

  ‘I had to get up here,’ she said simply, ‘and I did not want anyone to know the real reason. There would have been a fuss. Uncle Will and Aunt Julia, they’d never have let us go.’

  I swallowed. ‘The real reason?’ Any number of possibilities flashed through my mind, from Ellen wanting to go as a saloon dancer, to an elopement with some unrespectable young man, to having to flee Melbourne because of something wicked she’d done.

  Then she quite astonished me again by saying, ‘I promised our father before he died. I intend to make our fortune, Jamie.’ She ruffled my hair, something I hate normally, but just then I was too stunned to react. ‘Don’t look so frog-eyed, brother dear! I am quite determined to do it. And I hope you will help me.’

  I found my voice. ‘But … but what … do you want to do—prospect for gold?’

  She laughed. ‘I do not think I’d have the patience for that, or the strength. And I think the gold has more or less run out around here, has it not? No, I propose to search for a different sort of gold. Not mineral. Something else.’ She tapped the camera box. ‘And this will be my digging tool.’

  Light broke, and at the same time, dismay. ‘The camera? You intend to set up as a photographer? Is that it? But there are many photographers already in Wangaratta, and it takes money to set up a studio. We only have a few negative plates left and no money and—’

  ‘Dear little Jamie,’ she said in her most annoying bigsister-knows-best voice, ‘it is very sweet of you to think of all those things, but you must not worry. We will not have a studio.’

  ‘Then what? You mean to travel?’ Pa had done a fair bit of that, going around Melbourne and beyond, into the rural districts, touting for business. He would go with his camera to fairs and shows and knock on doors and ask people if they would like their photograph taken. And sometimes they would, and sometimes they wouldn’t. It was not an easy way to make a living and he only did it when he was getting close to the edge and it looked like the debts were catching up with him again. Ellen knew that. She’d been with him on a couple of his tours. Besides, we didn’t even have everything we needed. No chemical fixing solution, especially. I said as much to her. She shrugged.

  ‘That can be arranged, and anyway I don’t mean like that, going randomly here and there photographing cockies and flash coves and matrons and goodness knows what. I intend to make our fortune, Jamie. And to do that I have to strike gold. Real gold.’ She grinned at the baffled expression on my face. ‘We’ll have to wait and see if I can do it, eh?’

  ‘But Ellen, what about Uncle Will?’

  She frowned. ‘What about him?’

  ‘What did you tell him, in your letter?’

  ‘I just sent a short message to say we had arrived safely.’

  ‘But what will you tell him later?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. We’ll see. Look, Jamie, we’re leaving for Beechworth tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Beechworth? Why?’

  ‘Why not? It’s getting late and I’m bushed. I’m going to get a meal and go to bed, and I suggest you do the same.’

  And not another word could I get out of her on the subject, though I tried hard enough.

  Beechworth, August 10

  We are in lodgings in High Street, not far from the creek, in the home of a dour English widow named Mrs Pickett. We are not the only lodgers in the house and we certainly do not have the best rooms, but two mean little things out the back, with just enough space for a bed and a rickety wardrobe. Even that I thought we might not afford, because our money is dwindling by the day, but Ellen has managed to get the room for nothing, on account of offering Mrs Pickett her services free as a housemaid, three days a week. As to me, I’m to be wood-chopper and errand-boy for the household, and for all this the widow Pickett agreed to provide room and board. Not that the board is very splendid. It consists mostly of bread and soup and the occasional mutton stew, but it holds body and soul together, and as to the work it is hard (at least the wood-chopping) but not unpleasant. Though the widow is dour she is not unfair or harsh. Laddie is in her back paddock grazing and she allows Lorna space in the garden and bones from the table, so all in all we do well enough.

  On the days Ellen does not have to work at her household tasks, she disappears on errands of her own. She does not take the camera with her—it still rests in its box in the bottom of our wardrobe—and since Wangaratta she has scarcely spoken of her plans. It is no good pushing her on the matter. Ellen is an annoying person with a will of steel who will keep quiet until she is good and ready, and there is nothing my curiosity can do to make her open up if she does not want to.

  In my own free time I roam around Beechworth, Lorna at my heels. Beechworth is a fine town with many big stone buildings and good hotels and an elegant air. It is reckoned to be the capital of the north-east, though people say in the old days of the gold-rush it was booming like a flooded creek, swollen with many more people than are here today. But Beechworth nowadays is part of the Kelly search and so it is swollen again with those who have come looking for the outlaws: troopers and detectives and m
embers of the press and what have you. There are armed guards on the banks and numbers of police horses in the paddocks behind the police station and loud posters yelling the reward for the capture of the gang, and every day Kelly supporters are brought in from the hills and questioned, but through it all the town carries on its business. Everyone has a different take on the matter. Some say the Kellys are heroes and others villains, and still others keep their peace. I keep my eyes and ears pricked for news, but I learned my lesson with Mr Thompson and Mr Cook, and keep a watch on my tongue and my curiosity.

  Lorna and I have explored the town down to the Chinese quarter and the cemetery and skirted the forbidding high stone wall of the gaol where all the members of the Kelly gang were held at one time or other, but I have found a place I love above all others here. It is the bookshop and newsagency belonging to Mr Ingram in Camp Street, next to the post office with its tall red brick towers. It has a very pleasant reading room where you can browse through newspapers and magazines and books (Lorna of course must stay outside in the street—she does not mind). It does not seem to matter to Mr Ingram or his staff if a person stays there for a long time or does not buy much beyond the occasional paper. He is a kindly man with a big beard and a Scots accent which reminds me of Pa’s, and is generally reckoned to be one of the most upstanding citizens in Beechworth.

  August 11

  Today in the reading room I overheard Mr Ingram say the most surprising things to a red-haired man in his twenties, an American by his accent. We were the only three people in the room, and at first I paid no attention to what they were saying, for Mr Ingram was showing the American what was new on the shelves, but then I heard the visitor ask something about Ned Kelly, and my ears pricked up, though I took care not to look up from the newspaper I was studying. I heard Mr Ingram reply calmly, ‘Yes, that is so, sir, you’ve heard correctly. Ned did save a child from drowning when he was a lad down south in Avenel.’