Part 5

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.