True History of the Kelly Gang

If you know the country he said then you will be a wild colonial boy forever

Your grandfather were a quiet and secret man he had been ripped from his home in Tipperary and transported to the prisons of Van Diemen's Land I do not know what was done to him he never spoke of it. When they had finished with their tortures they set him free and he crossed the sea to the colony of Victoria. He were by this time 30 yr. of age red headed and freckled with his eyes always slitted against the sun. My da had sworn an oath to evermore avoid the attentions of the law so when he saw the streets of Melbourne was crawling with policemen worse than flies he walked 28 mi. to the township of Donnybrook and then or soon thereafter he seen my mother. Ellen Quinn were 18 yr. old she were dark haired and slender the prettiest figure on a horse he ever saw but your grandma was like a snare laid out by God for Red Kelly. She were a Quinn and the police would never leave the Quinns alone.

He were still smiling but his voice were hard as a spoon rattling in a metal cup.

..however she was a woman and I'd have more luck conjuring up the thoughts of a chinaman than I would figuring out what she was conspiring

after we ate we was silent on our blankets looking out across the mighty Great Divide I never seen this country before it were like a fairy story landscape the clear and windy skies was filled with diamonds the jagged black outlines of the ranges were a panorama. You're going to ride a horse across all that. I know. He laughed and he were right I knew nothing of what lay ahead. See that there he pointed. That is called the Crosscut Saw and that one is Mount Speculation and yonder is Mount Buggery and that other is Mount Despair did you know that? No Harry. You will and you'll be sorry.

Many is the night I have sat by the roaring river the rain never ending them logs so green bubbling and spitting blazing in a rage no rain can staunch.

The clouds was light but queerly yellow on their edges as they moved across the ageless constellations.

Said he the fact of the matter is I am a rat charmer. Thats very nice but do you want the flour or not I can't stand here all day discussing it. I'll give you my two pennies said the old fellow and the benefit of my rat charming. I have no rats. Thats for me to know. What do you mean by that you stinky old galoot do you think I do not know my own house and what is in it? Never you mind what I mean my name is Kevin the Rat Charmer and that is a name you won't be forgetting in a hurry I will send a plague upon your shebeen. Will you now? I will begot and ye will be praying to the Virgin that you had relented of your penny. And with that he turned away. If he had a swag it were hidden somewhere up the track for my mother never seen it and if he had baby rats riding in his pocket they was cleverly concealed for my mother detected nothing astir on his person. He were just a stinky old man in a woollen coat he went off down the muddy track to the creek then cut down in the direction of Winton. She never saw him again but he were correct that she would remember the name of Kevin the Rat Charmer for many a day.

And here is the thing about them men they was Australians they knew full well the terror of the unyielding law the historic memory of UNFAIRNESS were in their blood and a man might be a bank clerk or an overseer he might never have been lagged for nothing but still he knew in his heart what it were to be forced to wear the white hood in prison he knew what it were to be lashed for looking a warder in the eye and even a posh fellow like the Moth had breathed that air so the knowledge of unfairness were deep in his bone and marrow.

A mother can have no secrets in a settler's hut but 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.

At the end of the day the fence were still not complete but my family had witnessed my new strength and they I could be the man