On the Track | Page 7

on by
several diggers.) Now this maiding, being please-ed to see him so bold,

She gave him her glove that was flowered with gold, and explained that
she found it in his field while hunting around with her dog and her gun.
It is understood that he promised to look up the owner. Then she went
home and put an advertisement in the local `Herald'; and that ad. must
have caused considerable sensation. She stated that she had lost her
golden glove, and The young man that finds it and brings it to me, Hoh!
that very young man my husband shall be!
She had a saving clause in case the young farmer mislaid the glove
before he saw the ad., and an OLD bloke got holt of it and fetched it
along. But everything went all right. The young farmer turned up with
the glove. He was a very respectable young farmer, and expressed his
gratitude to her for having "honour-ed him with her love." They were
married, and the song ends with a picture of the young farmeress
milking the cow, and the young farmer going whistling to plough. The
fact that they lived and grafted on the selection proves that I hit the
right nail on the head when I guessed, in the first place, that the old
nobleman was "stony".
In after years, . . . she told him of the fun, How she hunted him up with
her dog and her gun. But whether he was pleased or otherwise to hear it,
after years of matrimonial experiences, the old song doesn't say, for it
ends there.
Flash Jack is more successful with "Saint Patrick's Day". I come to the
river, I jumped it quite clever! Me wife tumbled in, and I lost her for
ever, St. Patrick's own day in the mornin'! This is greatly appreciated
by Jimmy Nowlett, who is suspected, especially by his wife, of being
more cheerful when on the roads than when at home.
. . . . .
"Sam Holt" was a great favourite with Jimmy Nowlett in after years.
Oh, do you remember Black Alice, Sam Holt? 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 --