Ben Hall was a bushranger, one of the most celebrated in Australia folklore, and the subject of many poems and ballads. This is perhaps the finest of them.
THE DEATH OF BEN HELL by Williams Henry Ogilvie
Ben Hall was out on the Lachlan side
With a thousand pounds on his head,
A score of troopers were scattered wide,
And a hundred more were ready to ride
Wherever a rumour led.
They had followed his track from the Weddin’ heights,
And north by the Weelong yards;
Through dazzling days and moonlit nights
They had sought him over their rifle sights,
With their hands on the trigger-guards.
The outlaw stole like a hunted fox,
Through the scrub and stunted heath
And peered like a hawk from his eyrie rocks
Through the waving boughs of the sapling box
On the troopers riding beneath.
His clothes were rent by the clutching thorn,
And his blistered feet were bare;
Ragged and torn, with his beard unshorn,
He hid in the woods like a beast forlorn,
With a padded path to his lair.
But every night when the white stars rose
He crossed by the Gunning Plain
To a stockman’s hut where the Gunning flows,
And struck on the door three swift light blows,
And a hand unhooked the chain.
And the outlaw followed the lone path back
With food for another day;
And the kindly darkness covered his track,
And the shadows swallowed him deep and black,
Where the starlight melted away.
But his friend had read of the Big Reward,
And his soul was stirred with greed,
He fastened his door and window-board,
He saddled his horse and crossed the ford,
And spurred to the town at speed.
You may ride at a man’s or a maid’s behest
When honour or true love call.
And steel your heart to the worst or best,
But the ride that is taken on a traitor’s quest,
Is the bitterest ride of all.
A hot wind blew from the Lachlan bank
And a curse on its shoulder came;
The pine trees frowned at him, rank on rank;
The sun on a gathering storm-cloud sank
And flushed his cheek with shame.
He reined at the Court, and the tale began
That the rifles alone should end;
Sergeant and trooper laid their plan
To draw the net on a hunted man
At the treacherous word of a friend.
False was the hand that raised the chain
And false was the whispered word:
“The troopers have turned to the south again,
You may dare to camp on the Gunning Plain,”
And the weary outlaw heard.
He walked from the hut but a quarter mile,
Where a clump of saplings stood,
In a sea of grass like a lonely isle;
And the moon came up in a little while
Like silver steeped in blood.
Ben Hall lay down on the dew-wet ground
By the side of his tiny fire;
And a night-breeze woke, and he heard no sound
As the troopers drew their cordon round —
And the traitor earned his hire.
And nothing they saw in the dim grey light,
But the little glow in the trees;
And they crouched in the tall cold grass all night,
Each one ready to shoot at sight,
With his rifle cocked on his knees.
When the shadows broke and the Dawn’s white sword
Swung over the mountain wall,
And a little wind blew over the ford
A Sergeant sprang to his feet and roared:
“In the name of the Queen, Ben Hall.”
Haggard, the outlaw leapt from his bed
With his lean arms held on high,
“Fire” and the word was scarcely said
When the mountains rang to a rain of lead
And the dawn went drifting by.
They kept their word and they paid his pay
Where a clean man’s hand would shrink;
And that was the traitor’s master-day,
As he stood by the bar on his homeward way,
And called on the crowd to drink.
He banned no creed and barred no class,
And he called to his friends by name
But the worst would shake his head and pass,
And none would drink from the blood-stained glass
And the goblet red with shame.
And I know when I hear the last grim call,
And my mortal hour is spent,
When the light is hid and the curtains fall
I would rather sleep with the dead Ben Hall
Than go where that traitor went.
