better part of their existence, under the ban of a crime of which they were innocent.
The circumstances of the case, though, whether the charge be true or otherwise, afford not the least excuse for the highly injudicious, not to say barbarous, course subsequently adopted by the band in regard to the police. As was inferred previously, the refugees still occasionally visited and were visited by some of their more intimate friends, who, out of (illegal) kindness and sympathy, supplied them with rations, and information as to the movements of the police, as far as they could be ascertained. This was admitted on all hands to be extremely improper, reprehensible, and totally contrary to law; yet a few seemed to think, and still fewer ventured to say, that it was extremely natural for these misguided people to be ruled by their affections, regardless of public opinion, which guides most persons, and the majesty of the law, which awes a great number, and to persist in affording assistance to the wanderers, in defiance of both.
We refer here to the period of time during which the Kellys were charged with what, in comparison with their subsequent terrible acts, was a mere bagatelle; afterwards this sort of assistance was confined to those more near connections, who, while they condemned their conduct, could not be expected to utterly banish all human feelings of commiseration for the hunted outlaws.
Before long, Ned and Dan decided that they ought to adopt some means of recruiting their finances, which were down to zero, as they did not like being a drain of the resource of others; so, after taking a spell at fencing in the neighbourhood of the Merrijig, in a remote locality, bordering on, but to the south-east of their position, and some ten miles from their actual haunt, they made up their minds to try their fortune at gold digging in the heart of the mountains they had chosen for their retreat, where two parties of adventurous diggers had previously done reasonably well.
This seems to throw considerable doubt upon the report that they intention was to enter on a course of highway robbery through the country. Accordingly, in company with two mates, named Joseph Byrne and Stephen Hart, they commenced digging – or, rather, sluicing operations on a small stream not very distant from the Stringy-bark Creek, which they persevered in for some time, with the ordinary fluctuations of luck incidental to that industry.
Sufficient gold, however, was obtained periodically, not only to procure the necessaries they required during the portion of their withdrawal from the busy world, but also to lay in supplies, which they – cached in various spots, with a view to future contingencies. They also constructed a good log hut near the site of their operations, which they fitted up with the ordinary conveniences of bush life, and carefully loopholed in case of an attack. Of course the law, and the reward offered for Ned Kelly, demanded their pursuit and arrest; but it is sad to think that, had it been compatible with that law to ignore their existence during their voluntary exile, as it were, from civilization, and had the temptation of the glittering reward been removed, the sacrifice of three valuable lives, which plunged two families into unutterable grief, might have been avoided, and four wretched men might have escaped being involved in the crime of willful and deliberate murder.
From the fact of Byrne and Hart (though they had been “in trouble” on some trifling charges on various occasions) not being actually “wanted” by the police at the time they went into partnership with the Kellys, it may justly be inferred that they did not join them with the design of anticipation of participating in any act whereby their liberties or lives might be jeopardized or forfeited. Indeed, it was though by some that their presence at the deplorable tragedy of the 26th October was accidental, or, at any rate, they had no prevision of the terrible ending of the bloody encounter.
Be it as it may, they are now as guilty in the eye of the inexorable law as though they had planed and executed the slaughter unaided and alone.
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