The Maids of the Mountains<\/b><\/p>\n
In the wild Weddin Mountains
\nThere live two young dames;
\nKate O’Meally, Bet Mayhew
\nAre their pretty names;
\nThese maids of the mountains
\nAre bonny bush belles;
\nThey ride out on horseback,
\nTogged out like young swells.<\/p>\n
They dressed themselves up
\nIn their brothers’ best clothes,
\nAnd looked very rakish
\nAs you may suppose.
\nIn the joy of their hearts
\nThey chuckled with glee–
\nWhat fun if for robbers
\nThey taken should be.
\n<\/p>\n
Just then the policemen
\nBy day and by night,
\nWere seeking Frank Gardiner,
\nThe bushranger sprite.
\nBold Constable Clark
\nWore a terrible frown,
\nAnd thought how Sir Freddy
\nBy Frank was done “brown”.<\/p>\n
They sought for the ‘ranger,
\nBut of course found him not,
\nWhen suddenly Katy
\nAnd Betsy they spot.
\n“By Pott!” shouted Clark,
\n“That is Gardiner I see!
\nThe wretch must be taken
\nCome boys, follow me.”<\/p>\n
“Stand!” shouted the bobbies
\nIn accents most dread,
\n“Or else you will taste
\nOur infallible lead.”
\nBut the maids of the mountains
\nJust laughed at poor Clark,
\nAnd galloped away
\nTo continue their lark.<\/p>\n
The troopers pursued them
\nAnd hot was the chase,
\n‘Tis only in Randwick
\nThey go at such pace;
\nClark captured the pair,
\nThen, to show his vexation,
\nHe lugged them both off
\nTo the Young police station.<\/p>\n
The maids of the mountains,
\nThe joke much enjoyed
\nTo see their brave captors
\nSo sadly annoyed;
\nNext day they still smiled
\nAs they stood in the dock;
\nTheir awful position
\nTheir nerves did not shock.<\/p>\n
But Constable Clark
\nDid not look very jolly,
\nHe had no excuse
\nFor such absolute folly;
\nHe admitted the girls
\nWere just out on a spree,
\nAnd hoped that His Worship
\nWould set them both free.<\/p>\n
And so the farce ended
\nOf Belles versus Blues,
\nWhich caused no great harm
\nAnd did much to amuse;
\nBut the Burrangong bobbies
\nWill place in their cells,
\nNo more maids of the mountains–
\nThe bonny bush belles.<\/p>\n
Kate was a sister of Johnny O’Mealley (who worked with Gardiner, Gilbert & Hall)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Maids of the Mountains In the wild Weddin Mountains There live two young dames; Kate O’Meally, Bet Mayhew Are their pretty names; These maids of the mountains Are bonny bush belles; They ride out on horseback, Togged out like young swells. They dressed themselves up In their brothers’ best clothes, And looked very rakish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43,38,41,9],"tags":[6,40],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1860s","category-bushranging","category-nsw-regional","category-victorian","tag-from-lj","tag-ladies-of-the-bush"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p80PiF-1g","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Img_0007.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monissa.com\/roughseas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}