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.