All That Glitters: The conclusion of an epic adventure saga (The Australian Historical Saga Series Book 4) by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2021-12-22T05:00:00+00:00

18

When the lessons recommenced after the departure of all the Quinns and Kellys, there was a noticeable change in the relationship between Emily and Sean. It was as if, having been once rejected in favour of another, Emily held the resentment close to her chest. Whereas the classroom competitions between them had been light-hearted, and primarily focused on the learning outcomes, they had now — at least for Emily — become determined attempts to prove herself to be the better pupil. She never missed an opportunity to put Sean down, and would occasionally make a sarcastic reference to ‘your best friend Clodagh Quinn, who would have known that.’

Fortunately, the only ongoing contact outside the homestead was not with the Quinns, but the Kellys. As John Kelly finally began to come good on his promise to settle down to farming, they bought and sold one property after another, as their accumulated wealth slowly increased year by year. Jack was kept in regular employment recording their seeming upward mobility in a series of conveyances and title deeds that were passed through his professional hands during regular visits north to where the Kellys were now above the poverty line, and farming ‘in the middling sort of way’, as Ellen put it, on their series of properties in the Seymour area, a two-day ride north of Melbourne.

During their many visits to the various Kelly properties, Emily developed a firm friendship with the oldest Kelly daughter, Anne. Although Anne was three years younger than Emily, she more than matched her in life skills, given that, as the oldest surviving daughter in what had by 1865 become a family of seven children, she was expected to shoulder many of the domestic burdens that would otherwise have fallen to her exhausted but passionately dedicated mother, Ellen. It was from Anne Kelly that Emily learned all about baking bread, milking cows, cleaning the house and attempting to keep a wild younger brother out of trouble.

The younger brother in question was the eldest boy, Edward, known to all and sundry simply as ‘Ned’. He nodded obediently when his mother told him that the old silky oak tree at the foot of the home paddock should not be climbed, then listened more attentively when father ‘Red’ told him precisely why. He then went and climbed it anyway, and was only caught out when his three-year-old sister Maggie asked their mother why Ned was pretending to be a crow, and squawking at her from the top branch. His punishment was supposed to be confinement within their three-room shack for an entire week, but on the second night he demonstrated an early talent for evading authority that was to be put to a more arrogant use in his later years. Red took off his belt and gave Ned the benefit of a good old-fashioned thrashing that seemed only to make him more resentful and determined. Anne confided in Emily that ‘that damned boy will come to no good one day, you’ll see.’

Emily

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