We were told in after years that old Peter McKenzie (a respectable, married,
hard-working digger) would sometimes steal up opposite the bad door
in the dark, and throw in money done up in a piece of paper,
and listen round until the bad girl had sung the "Bonnie Hills of Scotland"
two or three times. Then he'd go and get drunk, and stay drunk
two or three days at a time. And his wife caught him
throwing the money in one night, and there was a terrible row,
and she left him; and people always said it was all a mistake.
But we couldn't see the mistake then.

But I can hear that girl's voice through the night, twenty years ago:

Oh! the bloomin' heath, and the pale blue bell,
In my bonnet then I wore;
And memory knows no brighter theme
Than those happy days of yore.
Scotland! Land of chief and song!
Oh, what charms to thee belong!

And I am old enough to understand why poor Peter McKenzie
-- who was married to a Saxon, and a Tartar -- went and got drunk
when the bad girl sang "The Bonnie Hills of Scotland."

His anxious eye might look in vain
For some loved form it knew!

. . . . .

And yet another thing puzzled us greatly at the time.