point of view; but it
was loud, and of the peculiar penetrating timbre which is invaluable for
the use of that language which alone serves in inducing a bullock team
to pull well, or for sending the stanzas of a bush song hurtling round a
camp fire.

As he raised his accordion to strike the preliminary canter of the five
automatic chords, every voice was silenced, and all eyes were turned
upon him, for Palmer Billy was always ready to oblige a camp with his
vocal entertainment, though in return he demanded, on the part of his
audience, silence (except when the chorus-time came) and attention.
Failing either, or both, Palmer Billy yielded to the sense of outraged
artistic sensibility and lapsed into silence himself, and when men are
living a more or less lonely life a hundred miles from anywhere, they
are inclined to look leniently upon the eccentricities of such genius as
fate casts in their way.

Palmer Billy, casting his eye round the firelit circle of bearded and
bronzed faces, and seeing every mouth closed and every eye fixed on his,
was satisfied, and completed the five automatic chords. Then he lifted
up his raucous, stridulating voice and sang, with the accentuation of an
artistic drawl which no one but himself ever knew where it was likely to
come, the opening verse of his song--

"Then roll the swag and blanket up,
And let us haste away
To the Golden Palmer, boys,
Where every one, they say,
Can get his ounce of gold, or
It may be more, a day,
In the Golden Gullies of the Palmer."

At the conclusion of the last word, which the vocalist sang as
"Par-her-mur," with a graceful little flourish on the "her," he swept
his eye round his audience, swung the accordion up to the full extent of
his arms over his left shoulder, and shouting, "Chorus, boys," opened
his mouth and his chest in the full glory of his stridulating notes as
he yelled, the others lustily joining--

"Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll sound the jubilee.
Hurrah! Hurrah! And we will merry be,
When we reach the diggings, boys,
There the nuggets see,
In the Golden Gullies of the Palmer."

[Illustration: "THEN ROLL THE SWAG AND BLANKET UP, AND LET US HASTE
AWAY." [_Page 56._]

The force of the chorus pleased him, and his eyes twinkled; for even if
every one of his audience had not caught the exact rhythm of the melody,
there could be no question as to their endeavours being in earnest,
and good soul-