A SCOTCH NIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15002, 25 May 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

A SCOTCH NIGHT.

IN QUEENSLAND.

The following verses have been sent by a Scottish reader to .the Weekly Telegraph, who heard them in Queensland :— ! If you chance to strike a gathering of ! half-a-dozen friends, Where the drink is Highland whisky or some chosen " border blends," And the room is full of " spierin," and the gripping of brown han's, And the talk is all of "tartans," and of "pladdies," and of "clans," You can take things free and easy, you can judge you're going right, For you've had the luck to etumbls on a " wee Scotch night.." When you're pitchforked in among tl>rn\ in a sweeping sort of way, As " another man or brither" from the Tweed or from the Tay, When you're taken by the shoulder , and you're couped into a chair, While someone slips a whisky in your tumbler unaware, Then the present seems less dismal and the future fair and bricht, For you've struck earth's grandest treasure in a "guid Scotch nicht." When you hear a short name shouted and the same name shouted back Till you think in tho confusion that they've all been christened " Mac," When you see a red beard Hashing in the corner by tho fire, and a giant on the sofa who is six foot three or higher, Before you've guesed tho colour and before you've gauged the height, You'll have jumped at the conclusion it's a "braw Scotch night." When the red man in the corner puts his strong voice to the proof, As he gives the "Hundred Pipers" and the chorus lifts the roof, When a chiel sings " Annie Laurie" with its tender, sweet refrain, Till the tears are on their eyelids and —the drink comes round again, When they chant the Stirring war-tongs that would make a coward fight, Then you're fairly in the middle of a "wee Scotch night." When tho plot begins to thicken and the bagpipes for to play, When every tinpot chieftain has a word or two to say, When they'd sell a Queensland station for a sprig of native heath, When there's one "Mac" on the table and a couple underneath, When the half of them are sleeping and the whole of them are tight, You will know that you're assisting at. a (hie) Scotch night. When the last big bottle's empty and tho dawn creeps grey and cold, And the last clan tartan's folded, and the last big lie is told, When they totter down the footpath in a brave, unbroken line, To the peril of tho passers, and the tune of " Anhl Lang Syne," You can tell the folk at breakfast as they watch the fearsome sicht, They have only been assisting at a " braw Scotch nicht."