第5章 The Songs They used to Sing(4)

Black Alice so dirty and dark -- Who'd a nose on her face -- I forget how it goes -- And teeth like a Moreton Bay shark.

Sam Holt must have been very hard up for tucker as well as beauty then, for Do you remember the 'possums and grubs She baked for you down by the creek?

Sam Holt was, apparently, a hardened flash Jack.

You were not quite the cleanly potato, Sam Holt.

Reference is made to his "manner of holding a flush", and he is asked to remember several things which he, no doubt, would rather forget, including . . . the hiding you got from the boys.

The song is decidedly personal.

But Sam Holt makes a pile and goes home, leaving many a better and worse man to pad the hoof Out Back. And -- Jim Nowlett sang this with so much feeling as to make it appear a personal affair between him and the absent Holt -- And, don't you remember the fiver, Sam Holt, You borrowed so careless and free?

I reckon I'll whistle a good many tunes (with increasing feeling)

Ere you think of that fiver and me.

For the chances will be that Sam Holt's old mate Will be humping his drum on the Hughenden Road To the end of the chapter of fate.

. . . . .

An echo from "The Old Bark Hut", sung in the opposition camp across the gully:

You may leave the door ajar, but if you keep it shut, There's no need of suffocation in the Ould Barrk Hut.

. . . . .

The tucker's in the gin-case, but you'd better keep it shut -- For the flies will canther round it in the Ould Bark Hut.

However:

What's out of sight is out of mind, in the Ould Bark Hut.

. . . . .

We washed our greasy moleskins On the banks of the Condamine. -- Somebody tackling the "Old Bullock Dray"; it must be over fifty verses now.

I saw a bushman at a country dance start to sing that song; he'd get up to ten or fifteen verses, break down, and start afresh.

At last he sat down on his heel to it, in the centre of the clear floor, resting his wrist on his knee, and keeping time with an index finger.

It was very funny, but the thing was taken seriously all through.

Irreverent echo from the old Lambing Flat trouble, from camp across the gully:

Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!

No more Chinamen will enter Noo South Wales! and Yankee Doodle came to town On a little pony -- Stick a feather in his cap, And call him Maccaroni!

All the camps seem to be singing to-night:

Ring the bell, watchman!

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Ring, for the good news Is now on the wing!

Good lines, the introduction:

High on the belfry the old sexton stands, Grasping the rope with his thin bony hands! . . .

Bon-fires are blazing throughout the land . . .

Glorious and blessed tidings! Ring! Ring the bell!

. . . . .

Granny Mathews fails to coax her niece into the kitchen, but persuades her to sing inside. She is the girl who learnt `sub rosa' from the bad girl who sang "Madeline". Such as have them on instinctively take their hats off. Diggers, &c., strolling past, halt at the first notes of the girl's voice, and stand like statues in the moonlight:

Shall we gather at the river, Where bright angel feet have trod?

The beautiful -- the beautiful river That flows by the throne of God! -- Diggers wanted to send that girl "Home", but Granny Mathews had the old-fashioned horror of any of her children becoming "public" -- Gather with the saints at the river, That flows by the throne of God!

. . . . .

But it grows late, or rather, early. The "Eyetalians" go by in the frosty moonlight, from their last shift in the claim (for it is Saturday night), singing a litany.

"Get up on one end, Abe! -- stand up all!" Hands are clasped across the kitchen table. Redclay, one of the last of the alluvial fields, has petered out, and the Roaring Days are dying. . . . The grand old song that is known all over the world; yet how many in ten thousand know more than one verse and the chorus? Let Peter McKenzie lead:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min'?

And hearts echo from far back in the past and across wide, wide seas:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne?

Now boys! all together!

For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine;

But we've wandered mony a weary foot, Sin' auld lang syne.

The world was wide then.

We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, Frae mornin' sun till dine: the log fire seems to grow watery, for in wide, lonely Australia -- But seas between us braid hae roar'd, Sin' auld lang syne.

The kitchen grows dimmer, and the forms of the digger-singers seemed suddenly vague and unsubstantial, fading back rapidly through a misty veil. But the words ring strong and defiant through hard years:

And here's a hand, my trusty frien', And gie's a grup o' thine;

And we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne.

. . . . .

And the nettles have been growing for over twenty years on the spot where Granny Mathews' big bark kitchen stood.