It was
great to hear him deliver "My Boy Tammie" in
Austrylian; and the words (some of the worst of the
ruffian Macneill's) were hailed in his version with
inextinguishable mirth.
"Where hye ye been a' dye?"
he would ask, and answer himself:--
"I've been by burn and flowery brye,
Meadow green and mountain grye,
Courtin' o' this young thing,
Just come frye her mammie."
It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the
conclusion of this song with the simultaneous cry, "My
word!" thus winging the arrow of ridicule with a
feather from the singer's wing. But he had his revenge
with "Home, Sweet Home," and "Where is my Wandering Boy
To-night?"--ditties into which he threw the most
intolerable pathos. It appeared he had no home, nor
had ever had one, nor yet any vestige of a family,
except a truculent uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W.
His domestic sentiment was therefore wholly in the air,
and expressed an unrealised ideal. Or perhaps, of all
his experiences, this of the CURRENCY LASS, with
its kindly, playful, and tolerant society, approached
it the most nearly.
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