The people at this house turned out to be particularly kind. The mother shown herself a mighty cook she soon give us steamed pudding with jam sauce and yellow custard I never seen such a treat in all my life. I were 1/2 way through my 2nd helping when the door swung open and there stood Harry Power Esq. He had shaved his beard off it were disturbing to see his naked phiz revealed the jaw too long the mouth would not give a smile unless compelled to. It was such a hard square head as you see in prisons it were made by hammering and burning.
Come out the back he said I want a word with you Ned Kelly.
On the back veranda Harry were holding out my elastic sided boots. When last I saw them boots they was muddied and sodden but the old wombat had been to work on them and that surprised me mightily for he had a great aversion to menial labour. If this were meant to be apology or payment he did not say but he had scraped and oiled and dubbined them until they was soft as a lady’s purse.
Here said he tossing them to me I reckon you forget these when you run away.
I looked into his hard old face but did not see the slightest flicker.
There was nothing for me to do but sit down to pull the boots on. My feet must of grown for now they pinched my toes.
Comfy?
Yes Harry.
You can try them out with bringing round my horse.
I were pledged not to take his orders no more but fair is fair I did require his assistance in the matter of Bill Frost so I went to the paddock hunting down his poor old switchtailed mare then I found his saddle abandoned on a stile and did the duty he required of me.
Where’s your own nag he said when I come back. Jesus lad the light is wasting.
I didnt say goodbye yet.
Eff goodbye said he you go and get your effing horse.
I walked back down through the thick green pasture and found and saddled my own horse but still did not mount though I could feel Harry’s growing fury at my dawdling. I suppose it were the girl that done it to me for I walked slowly up towards the house admiring all the neat fencing and the fat black cattle making their way from the river to the bails. Of course Harry were already mounted his gleaming pistols stuck plainly in his thick brown belt. His pipe were clenched in that long strong jaw he had previously hid beneath his beard.
Get on the horse said he.
He did not understand I were now too old to be talked to in this manner I made no move until I saw he was about to welt me then I spoke.
My ma needs your help.
Ah said he and everything about him changed.
Bill Frost is bolted to Melbourne. My ma is awful upset.
He almost smiled. You reckon do you?
Yes I reckon.
Harry pulled his pipe in 1/2 then blew a long stream of thick black spit out the stem. He seemed v. pleased as he always were when about to prove another man a fool.
Well said he now here is the latest. Bill Frost never went to adjectival Melbourne.
He’s there I know it.
By the 5 crosses he aint.
By the 5 crosses he is.
By the powers of death he aint. He is at Peter Martin’s Star Hotel in Wangaratta and he has been there all this week not 10 mi. away.
You seen the b– – – – r?
Maguire had the pleasure.
I don’t know Maguire.
Well you tried to murder him at Oxley the night you lost your boots but apart from that its true you don’t know a tinker’s fart about him. Maguire has seen our Bill and reports the man is having a great old rort him and his new sheila Brigit Cotter.
I never heard of her.
Well when the man aint shagging her he’s in the public bar entertaining all the punters with how Ned Kelly threatened to shoot him. O I see you blush. He is making an adjectival fool of you with that story by now it is knowed by everyone in Wangaratta.
It were a sweet spring evening now but I had reason to recall Bill Frost’s lizard eyes in the moonlight it had been a dull malicious way he stared at me.
That is why I sent for you said Harry.
Its exactly why I come said I we was both thinking the same thought.
O I doubt it son I really do.
He’s a dreadful mongrel but she’s very bad without him. I need to bring him back.
No said Harry his voice were almost gentle that is the scheme you wanted when you was ignorant but now you know that Frost has been unfaithful to your ma. He has a new donah and you know what he is saying about your own self.
He’s a b–––––d but my mother has a baby coming.
We can look after your ma said Harry but 1st you have to attend to Frost you aint got a da to tell you this so let me do the honour you cannot let him make a jackass of you.
There aint nothing I can do.
O aint there?
What he says is right I did say I would shoot him if he bolted.
He makes out you are a coward is that right too? Are you a coward?
Don’t say that Harry. You know I aint.
Then you know what you must do.
I looked into them hard old eyes and saw the deed that lay ahead of me it were a horror no one could wish but now I knew there were no choice.
Yes I know what must be done.
Leaving the dusk in the valley we had just regained the sunlight on the crest when we was violently confronted by a horse and cart it come swinging round the corner with a short old fellow standing on the buggy seat like something in a circus he had a clay pipe clenched between his teeth and his whip were roiling a great cloud of dust pushing it down the road ahead of him. We only just escaped his path but then he saw us he whoaed up and when the confusion were all settled I realised it were Mr B. I will use that initial although it is not the right one for he were a poor selector known to both of us. His wife had passed away not long previous.
Mr B. had finally pulled up 1/2 way down the hill so I called a greeting as I rode towards him but he would not answer I reckoned he were cutting me. He spoke only to Harry using his 1st name many times as if proud to be as friendly with him as he were disdainful of myself. His information were that Bill Frost had departed Wangaratta for Beechworth and when I realised Mr B. had flogged his swaybacked nag into the ground for the sole purpose of bringing Harry the news I began to see the size of event I had precipitated.
When Harry opened his purse in order to reward him Mr B. swore he spat and said Harry were his mate he would be insulted to take money for the service.
Mr B. were a poor man his shirt were ragged his boots patched with pitch and twine but he had to make his speech and Harry did not mind listening not at all. Finally the old selector accepted the money and returned the way he had come his cart horse had thrown a shoe and was limping badly.
As the poor pay fealty to the bushranger thus the bushranger pays fealty to the poor.
We turned our horses ambling back down the hill we was now in no hurry to reach our destination my reason will be obvious enough but as for Harry he wished to enter the town late at night because there was 2 Constables in Beechworth with a hankering to make their reputations with his neck.
We was passing the little farmhouse where I had been so well entertained when Harry asked what I thought of the boy Shan and I answered he could ride as well as any boy I ever saw. Then Harry told me that it were his strong suspicion that Shan were not a human boy but a substitute that had been left.
It were that time of day when the light is high up on the ridgetops while down in the valley floor everything were what Scots call the gloaming all the crows and currawongs very melancholy. Harry said there were a couple near Tipperary that had a child which were taken in the night. The so called CHILD left in its place were very strange with a wasted appearance in its eyes you could see that it were very old indeed. The parents was afraid of it and would not argue with it and it could break a plate or climb around the thatching without them daring to contradict it. Harry hadnt seen this substitute child himself but his mother knew him she said the boy had the ability to be in many different places in the one time. He liked to sew and while this were a strange occupation for a boy no one would make jokes at his expense. The wonder of his village he were often about in the woods or nearby towns then inside his cottage sometimes at the same minute he were also in the fields. At the cottage he sat by the fire working on a patchwork cloak it were quite outstanding and no one could explain where he got such colours from. There were a red in particular which were like the red you find in a stained glass window and there was no red about his mother’s garments in the whole house not the smallest skerrick.
People come paying their respects to the parents but they really come to see the cloak to watch the boy’s fifngers as he sewed no one never seen the like of it before. The ffingers was so very long and nimble they were like the ffingers of a monkey bending as he sewed as if there was no bones at all but as for the design itself people complained it were almost impossible to get a good look at what the boy were up to.
Time passed his brothers and his sisters growing older with children of their own but the boy didnt age a day although some thought his eyes grew paler no one could imagine how a simple cloak could occupy him for such a length of time.
Then one day the mother goes to the priest saying that the boy had a question that wanted answering and would the Holy Father call on them at such and such a time. The priest come to the house where he found the boy were waiting by the fifreplace and the boy straight away asks his question which were as follows.
Would he go to Heaven yes or no.
The priest looked at the boy at his strange washed out eyes his long thin fifngers and he did not wish to offend him nor did he wish to lie.
At last he spoke he said I can promise you that if you have a drop of Adam’s blood in your veins you have as good a chance as I.
And if not says the boy.
Then said the priest you will not go to Heaven.
And with that the poor creature let out an awful kind of shriek he dropped his patchwork on the ffloor and run away. He were never seen again but his parents kept the needlework for many years after. It were a picture of the Holy Mother with her Babe and everyone who seen it reported it were very ffine.
It were now almost dark I asked Harry did he ever see this needlework he said his mother had been shown it on the eve of the very day she were transported. I asked him did he believe in the fairy stories and his answer were he had heard so many from his mother he concluded their only purpose were to frighten the young people to keep the boys away from girls but now his mind were changed. He thought there might be something to them after all.
The horses were ambling v. slow it were hard to see the track at this time I asked Harry what it were that changed his mind but he give no answer. When I asked had he seen a Banshee he remained silent so I didnt ask him no more but my mind began to dwell on dark things as we travelled north towards Bill Frost and my heart were heavy with foreboding.
It were no more than 15 mi. from Beechworth that we smelled the cursed odour of burning eucalyptus I said there were a bushfire very close Harry said I were mistaken the fire were far away. When we come across Hodgson’s Creek there was black leaves falling from the sky but still Harry refused to be diverted and it were not until them leaves begun to show the crimson fringe he finally called a halt. I would not have to be a murderer or so I thought.
Wet your kerchief said Harry placing a bottle of water in my hand. Tie that hanky across your mouth and schnozzle.
So we pushed on towards the murder and you can rightly say I would of proved my manhood better by turning back to Greta but on that fateful night I were caught between my 15th & 16th yr. and in my wisdom thought I had no choice but accompany Harry Power. I followed the old wombat through the dark the smoke now stung my eyes without relent. My horse didnt like it neither she froze with her head up her ears flickering back and forth. I would not whip her but lay along her quivering neck speaking comfort to her. Harry led us off the road but I knew he could not see no track no more than I could. Edging forward carefully along a ridge we come onto a saddle where we might of expected to glimpse the distant lanterns of Beechworth but instead found only choking smoke it were brown and yellow illuminated by a glow like the inside of a baker’s furnace. There were no sight of flames but the wind were rising from what I took to be the east. My horse quivered she felt the doom in front of her and I spoke to her and told her she were my good girl I would never see her hurt but in truth I were lost and could not see the moon or stars. We begun working our way along the contour but the wind only grew hotter. Twice Harry’s mare frighted and reared up in the dark and I imagined him also lost but in this I did him an injury for he succeeded in guiding us cunningly around the conflagration that were no mean feat of bushmanship.
From above Reid’s Creek we finally attained a clear hill from which we could view the main front of the fire which were running the ridge to the north east coming almost to the edges of Beechworth itself. The native pine were blazing the apple gum and scrub alight the fire come roaring up our flank forcing us down into the Woolshed Valley beside Reid’s Creek. In dense smoke we nearly trampled a lone selector with his children all done up with scarves around their faces going off to fight the fire. There were one boy he were no more than 5 yr. old wearing his father’s flat grey hat and his eyes was fearful in his lantern light. I said we should help them save their fences.
Harry looked back over his shoulder he said fences get rebuilt he would not stop. I felt a very bad conscience to see that family disappear into the smoke thinking of my own family imagining my mother at that moment with her hands across her belly the baby quickening in her womb. God willing one day I would tell that baby the story of the apple gums exploding in the night the 1/2 mad kangaroos driven down before this wrath into the township of Sebastopol.
In the same desolate valley we found a group of Chinese still working their sluices by lantern light. The white miners had quit these diggings years before but the celestials was sifting through the leftover mullock they would never rest not even fire could drive them from their labour. The earth here were like a mighty firebreak all ripped apart like a creature slaughtered its skin pulled back its guts torn out by dogs it were like a battlefield no quarter given. This certainly were not our original destination but through this hellish scene did the young murderer ride and soon he come upon a rough little hut outside which a number of Chinamen was engaged with a game of mahjong on a wide wooden plank. These was hard looking fellows all dried out and salted down for keeping.