It was a strange thing, the way Mac drew comic things to himsel'. It seemed on our Galloway tour, in particular, that a' the funny, sidesplitting happenings saved themselves up till he was aboot to help to mak' them merrier. I was the comedian; he was the serious artist, the great violinist. But ye'd never ha' thocht our work was divided sae had ye been wi' us.

It was to me that fell one o' the few heart-rending episodes o' the whole tour. Again it's the story of a man who thocht the world owed him a living, and that his mission was but to collect it. Why it is that men like that never see that it' not the world that pays them, but puir individuals whom they leave worse off for knowing them, and trusting them, and seeking to help them?

I mind it was at Gatehouse-of-Fleet in Kircudbrightshire that, for once in a way, for some reason I do not bring to mind, Mac and I were separated for a nicht. I found a lodging for the night wi' an aged couple who had a wee cottage all covered wi' ivy, no sae far from the Solway Firth. I was glad o' that; I've aye loved the water.

It was nae mair than four o'clock o' the afternoon when I reached the cottage and found my landlady and her white-haired auld husband waitin' to greet me. They made me as welcome as though I'd been their ain son; ye'd ne'er ha' thocht they were just lettin' me a bit room and gie'n me bit and sup for siller. 'Deed, an' that's what I like fine about the Scots folk. They're a' full o' kindness o' that sort. There's something hamely aboot a Scots hotel ye'll no find south o' the border, and, as for a lodging, why there's nowt to compare wi' Scotland for that. Ye feel ye're ane o' the family so soon as ye set doon yer traps and settle doon for a crack wi' the gude woman o' the hoose.

This was a fine, quiet, pawky pair I found at Gatehouse-of-Fleet. I liked them fine frae the first, and it was a delight to think of them as a typical old Scottish couple, spending the twilight years of their lives at hame and in peace. They micht be alane, I thocht, but wi' loving sons and daughters supporting them and caring for them, even though their affairs called them to widely scattered places.

Aweel, I was wrong. We were doing fine wi' our talk, when a door burst open, and five beautiful children came running in.

"Gie's a piece, granny," they clamored. "Granny—is there no a piece for us? We're so hungry ye'd never ken——"

They stopped when they saw me, and drew awa', shyly.

But they need no' ha' minded me. Nor did their granny; she knew me by then. They got their piece—bread, thickly spread wi' gude, hame made jam. Then they were off again, scampering off toward the river. I couldna help wonderin' about the bairns; where was their mither? Hoo came it they were here wi' the auld folks? Aweel, it was not my affairs.

"They're fine bairns, yon," I said, for the sake of saying something.

"Oh, aye, gude enow," said the auld man. I noticed his gude wife was greetin' a bit; she wiped her een wi' the corner of her apron. I thocht I'd go for a bit walk; I had no mind to be preying into the business o' the hoose. So I did. But that nicht, after the bairns were safe in bed and sound asleep, we all sat aboot the kitchen fire. And then it seemed the auld lady was minded to talk, and I was glad enow to listen. For ane thing I've always liked to hear the stories folk ha' in their lives. And then, tae, I know from my ane experience, how it eases a sair heart, sometimes, to tell a stranger what's troublin' ye. Ye can talk to a stranger where ye wouldna and couldna to ane near and dear to ye. 'Tis a strange thing, that—I mind we often hurt those who love us best because we can talk to ithers and not to them. But so it is.

"I saw ye lookin' at the bairns the day," she said. "Aye, they're no mine, as ye can judge for yersel'. It was our dochter Lizzie bore them. A fine lassie, if I do say so. She's in service the noo at a big hoose not so far awa' but that she can slip over often to see them and us. As for her husband——"

Tears began to roll doon her cheeks as she spoke. I was glad the puir mither was no deed; it was hard enough, wi' such bonny bairns, to ha' to leave them to others, even her ane parents, to bring up.

"The father o' the bairns was a bad lot—is still, I've no doot, if he's still living. He was wild before they were wed, but no so bad, sae far as we knew then. We were no so awfu' pleased wi' her choice, but we knew nothing bad enough aboot him to forbid her tak' him. He was a handsome lad, and a clever yin. Everyone liked him fine, forbye they distrusted him, too. But he always said he'd never had a chance. He talked of how if one gie a dog a bad name one micht as well droon him and ha' done. And we believed in him enow to think he micht be richt, and that if he had the chance he'd settle doon and be a gude man enow."

He' ye no heard that tale before? The man who's never had a chance! I know a thousand men like that. And they've had chances you and I wad ha' gie'n whatever we had for and never had the manhood to tak' them! Eh, but I was sair angry, listening to her.

She told o' how she and her husband put their heads togither. They wanted their dochter to have a chance as gude as' any girl. And so what did they do but tak' all the savings of their lives, twa hundred pounds, and buy a bit schooner for him. He was a sailor lad, it seems, from the toon nearby, and used to the sea.

"'Twas but a wee boat we bought him, but gude for his use in journeying up and doon the coast wi' cargo. His first trip was fine; he made money, and we were all sae happy, syne it seemed we'd been richt in backing him, for a' the neighbors had called us fools. But then misfortune laid sair hands upon us a'. The wee schooner was wrecked on the rocks at Gairliestone. None was lost wi' her, sae it kicht ha' been worse—though I dinna ken, I dinna ken!

"We were a' sorry for the boy. It was no his fault the wee boat was lost; none blamed him for that. But, d'ye ken, he came and brocht himsel' and his wife and his bairns, as they came along, to live wi' us. We were old. We'd worked hard all our lives. We'd gie'n him a' we had. Wad ye no think he'd have gone to work and sought to pay us back? But no. Not he. He sat him doon, and was content to live upon us—faither and me, old and worn out though he knew we were.

"And that wasna the worst. He asked us for siller a' the time, and he beat Lizzie, and was cruel to the wee bairns when we wouldna or couldna find it for him. So it went on, for the years, till, in the end, we gied him twenty pounds more we'd put awa' for a rainy day that he micht tak' himself' off oot o' our sicht and leave us be in peace. He was aff tae Liverpool at once, and we've never clapped een upon him syne then.

"Puir Lizzie! She loves him still, for all he's done to her and to us. She says he'll come back yet, rich and well, and tak' her out o' service, and bring up the bairns like the sons and dochters of gentlefolk. And we—weel, we say nowt to shake her. She maybe happier thinking so, and it's a sair hard time she's had, puir lass. D'ye mind the wee lassie that was sae still till she began to know ye—the weest one of them a'? Aye? Weel, she was born six months after her faither went awa', and I think she's our favorite among them a'."

"And ye ha' the care and the feedin' and the clothin' o' all that brood?" I said. "Is it no cruel hard'?"

"Hard enow," said the auld man, breaking his silence. "But we'd no be wi'oot them. They brichten up the hoose it'd be dull' and drear wi'oot them. I'm hoping that daft lad never comes back, for all o' Lizzie's thinking on him!"

And I share his hope. Chance! Had ever man a greater chance than that sailor lad? He had gone wrong as a boy. Those old folk, because their daughter loved him, gave him the greatest chance a man can have—the chance to retrieve a bad start, to make up for a false step. How many men have that? How many men are there, handicapped as, no doubt, he was, who find those to put faith in them? If a man may not take advantage of sicca chance as that he needs no better chance again than a rope around his neck with a stone tied to it and a drop into the Firth o' Forth!

I've a reminder to this day of that wee hoose at Gatehouse-of-Fleet. There was an old fashioned wag-at-the-wa' in the bedroom where I slept. It had a very curiously shaped little china face, and it took my fancy greatly. Sae, next morning, I offered the old couple a good, stiff price for it mair than it was worth, maybe, but not mair than it was worth to me. They thought I was bidding far too much, and wanted to tak' half, but I would ha' my ain way, for sae I was sure neither of was being cheated. I carried it away wi' me, and the little clock wags awa' in my bedroom to this very day.

There's a bit story I micht as weel tell ye mesel', for yell hear it frae Mac in any case, if ever ye chance to come upon him. It's the tale o' Kirsty Lamont and her rent box. I played eavesdropper, or I wouldna know it to pass it on to ye, but it's tae gude tae lose, for a' that. I'll be saying, first, that I dinna know Kirsty Lamont, though I mak' sae free wi' her name, gude soul!

It was in Kirremuir, and there'd been a braw concert the nicht before. I was on my way to the post office, thinking there'd be maybe a bit letter from the wife—she wrote to me, sometimes, then, when I was frae hame, oor courtin' days not being so far behind us as they are noo. (Ah, she travels wi' me always the noo, ye ken, sae she has nae need to write to me!) Suddenly I heard my own name as I passed a bunch o' women gossiping.

"What thocht ye o' Harry Lauder?" one of them asked another.

And the one she asked was no slow to say! "I think this o' Harry Lauder, buddies!" she declared, vehemently. "I think it's a dirty trick he's played on me, the wee deeil. I'm not sayin' it was altogither his fault, though—he's not knowing he did it!"

"How was the way o' that, Kirsty Lamont?" asked another.

"I'm tellin' ye. Fan the lassies came in frae the mull last nicht they flang their working things frae them as though they were mad.

"'Fat's all the stushie?' I asked them. They just leuch at me, and said they were hurryin' so they could hear Harry Lauder sing. They said he was the comic frae Glasga, and they asked me was I no gang wi' them tae the Toon Ha' to hear his concert.

"'No,' I says. 'All the siller in the hoose maun gang for the rent, and it's due on Setterday. Fat wad the neighbors be sayin' if they saw Kirsty Lamont gang to a concert in a rent week—fashin' aboot like that!'"

"But Phem—that's my eldest dochter, ye ken—she wad ha' me gang alang. She bade me put on my bonnet and my dolman, and said she'd pay for me, so's to leave the siller for the rent. So I said I'd gang, since they were so keen like, and we set oot jist as John came hame for his tea. I roort at him that he could jist steer for himself for a nicht. And he asked why, and I said I was gang to hear Harry Lauder.

"'Damn Harry Lauder!" he answers, gey short. "Ye'll be sorry yet for this nicht's work, Kirsty Lamont. Leavin' yer auld man tae mak' his ain tea, and him workin' syne six o'clock o' the morn!'"

"I turn't at that, for John's a queer ane when he tak's it intil's head, but the lassies poo'd me oot th' door and in twa-three meenits we were at the ha'. Fat a crushin' a fechtin' the get in. The bobby at the door saw me—savin' that we'd no ha' got in. But the bobby kens me fine—I've bailed John oot twice, for a guinea ilka time, and they recognize steady customers there like anywheres else!

"The concert was fine till that wee man Harry came oot in his kilt. And then, losh, I startit to laugh till the watter ran doon my cheeks, and the lassies was that mortified they wushed they had nae brocht me. I'm no ane to laugh at a concert or a play, but that wee Harry made ithers laugh beside me, so I was no the only ane to disgrace mysel'.

"It was eleven and after when we got hame. And there was no sogn o' John. I lookit a' ower, and he wisna in the hoose. Richt then I knew what had happened. I went to the kist where I kep' the siller for the rent. Not a bawbee left! He'll be spendin' it in the pubs this meenit I'm talkie' to ye, and we'll no see him till he hasna a penny left to his name. So there's what I think of yer Harry Lauder. I wish I wis within half a mile o' him this meenit, and I'd tell him what I thocht o' him, instead o' you! It's three months rent yer fine Harry Lauder has costit me! Had he na been here in Kirrie last nicht de ye think I'd ever ha' left the rent box by its lane wi' a man like our Jock in the hoose?"

You may be sure I did not turn to let the good Kirsty see my face. She wasna sae angry as she pretended, maybe, but I'm thinkin' she'd maybe ha' scratched me a bit in the face o' me, just to get even wi' me, had she known I was so close!

I've heard such tales before and since the time I heard Kirsty say what she thocht o' me. Many's the man has had me for an explanation of why he was sae late. I'm sorry if I've made trouble t'wixt man and wife, but I'm flattered, too, and I may as well admit it!

Ye can guess hoo Mac took that story. I was sae unwise as tae tell it to him, and he told it to everyone else, and was always threatening me with Kirsty Lamont. He pretended that some one had pointed her oot to him, so that he knew her by sicht, and he wad say that he saw her in the audience. And sometimes he'd peep oot the stage door and say he saw her waiting for me.

And, the de'il! He worked up a great time with the wife, tellin' aboot this Kirsty Lamont that was so eager to see me, till Nance was jealous, almost, and I had to tell her the whole yarn before she'd forgie me! Heard ye ever the like o' such foolishness? But that was Mac's way. He could distil humor from every situation.



CHAPTER IX

Yon were grand days, that I spent touring aboot wi' Mac, singing in concerts. It was an easy going life. The work was light. My audiences were comin' to know me, and to depend on me. I had no need, after a time, to be worrying; we were always sure of a good hoose, wherever we went. But I was no quite content. I was always being eaten, in yon time, wi' a lettle de'il o' ambition, that gnawed at me, and wadna gie me peace.

"Man, Harry," he'd say, "I ken weel ye're doin' fine! But, man canna ye do better? Ca' canny, they'll be tellin' ye, but not I! Ye maun do as well as ye can. There's the wife to think of, and the bairn John— the wee laddie ye and the wife are so prood on!"

It was so, and I knew it. My son John was beginning to be the greatest joy to me. He was so bricht, sae full o' speerit. A likely laddie he was. His mither and I spent many a lang evening dreaming of his future and what micht be coming his way.

"He'll ne'er ha' to work as a laddie as his faither did before him," I used to say. "He shall gang to schule wi' the best in the land."

It was the wife had the grandest dream o' all.

"Could we no send him to the university?" she said. "I'd gie ma een teeth, Harry, to see him at Cambridge!"

I laughed at her, but it was with a twist in the corners o' ma mooth. There was money coming in regular by then, and there was siller piling up in the bank. I'd nowt to think of but the wee laddie, and there was time enow before it would be richt to be sending him off—time enow for me to earn as muckle siller as he micht need. Why should he no be a gentleman? His blood was gude on both sides, frae his mither and frae me. And, oh, I wish ye could ha' seen the bonnie laddie as his mither and I did! Ye'd ken, then, hoo it was I came to be sae ambitious that I paid no heed to them that thocht it next door to sinfu' for me to be aye thinkin' o' doing even better than I was!

There were plenty like that, ye'll ken. Some was a wee bit jealous. Some, who'd known me my life lang, couldna believe I could hope to do the things it was in my heart and mind to try. They believed they were giving me gude advice when they bade me be content and not tempt providence.

"Man, Harry, listen to me," said one old friend. "Ye've done fine. Ye're a braw laddie, and we're all prood o' ye the noo. Don't seek to be what ye can never be. Ye'll stand to lose all ye've got if ye let pride rule ye."

I never whispered my real ambition to anyone in yon days—saving the wife, and Mackenzie Murdoch. Indeed, and it was he who spoke first.

"Ye'll not be wasting all yer time in the north country, Harry," he said. "There's London calling to ye!"

"Aye—London!" I said, a bit wistfully, I'm thinking. For me, d'ye ken, a Scots comic, to think o' London was like an ordinary man thinkin' o' takin' a trip to the North Pole. "My time's no come for that, Mac."

"Maybe no," said Mac. "But it will come—mark my words, Harry. Ye've got what London'll be as mad to hear as these folk here. Ye've a way wi' ye, Harry, my wee man!"

'Deed, and I did believe that mysel'! It's hard for a man like me to know what he can do, and say so when the time comes, wi'oot making thoughtless folk think he's conceited. An artist's feeling aboot such things is a curious one, and hard for any but artists to understand. It's a grand presumption in a man, if ye look at it in one way, that leads him to think he's got the right to stand up on a stage and ask a thousand people, or five thousand, to listen to him—to laugh when he bids them laugh, greet when he would ha' them sad.

To bid an audience gather, gie up its plans and its pursuits, tak' an hoor or two of its time—that's a muckle thing to ask! And then to mak' them pay siller, too, for the chance to hear you! It's past belief, almost, how we can do it, in the beginning. I'm thinking, the noo, how gude a thing it was I did not know, when I first quit the pit and got J. C. MacDonald to send me oot, how much there was for me to learn. I ken it weel the noo—I ken how great a chance it was, in yon early days.

But when an artist's time has come, when he has come to know his audiences, and what they like, and why—then it is different. And by this time I was a veteran singer, as you micht say. I'd sung before all sorts of folk. They'd been quick enough to let me know the things they didn't like. In you days, if a man in a gallery didna like a song or the way I sang it, he'd call oot. Sometimes he'd get the crowd wi' him—sometimes they'd rally to me, and shout him doon.

"Go on, Harry—sing yer own way—gang yer ain gait!" I've heard encouraging cries like that many and many a time. But I've always learned from those that disapproved o' me. They're quieter the noo. I ha' to watch folk, and see, from the way they clap, and the way they look when they're listening, whether I'm doing richt or wrong.

It's a digression, maybe, but I micht tell ye hoo a new song gets into my list. I must add a new song every sae often, ye ken. An' I ha' always a dozen or mair ready to try. I help in the writing o' my ain songs, most often, and so I ken it frae the first. It's changed and changed, both in words and music, over and over again. Then, when I think it's finished, I begin to sing it to mysel'. I'll sing while I'm shaving, when I tak' my bath, as I wander aboot the hoose or sit still in a railway train. I try all sorts of different little tricks, shadings o' my voice, degrees of expression.

Sometimes a whole line maun be changed so as to get the right sort o' sound. It makes all the difference in the world if I can sing a long "oh" sound, sometimes, instead o' a clippit e or a short a. To be able to stand still, wi' ma moth open, big enow for a bird to fly in, will mak' an audience laugh o' itself.

Anyway, it's so I do wi' a new song. I'll ha' sung it maybe twa-three thousand times before ever I call it ready to try wi' an audience. And even then I'm just beginning to work on it. Until I know how the folk in front tak' it I can't be sure. It may strike them in a way quite different from my idea o' hoo it would. Then it may be I'll ha' to change ma business. My audiences always collaborate wi' me in my new songs—and in my old ones, too, bless 'em. Only they don't know it, and they don't realize how I'm cheating them by making them pay to hear me and then do a deal o' my work for me as well.

It's a great trick to get an audience to singing a chorus wi' ye. Not in Britain—it's no difficult there, or in a colony where there are many Britons in the hoose. But in America I must ha' been one o' the first to get an audience to singing. American audiences are the friendliest in the world, and the most liberal wi' applause ye could want to find. But they've always been a bit shy aboot singin' wi ye. They feel it's for ye to do that by yer lane.

But I've won them aroond noo, and they help me more than they ken. Ye'll see that when yer audience is singing wi' ye ye get a rare idea of hoo they tak' yer song. Sometimes, o' coorse, a song will be richt frae the first time I sing it on the stage; whiles it'll be a week or a month or mair before it suits me. There's nae end to the work if ye'd keep friends wi' those who come oot to hear ye, and it's just that some singers ha' never learned, so that they wonder why it is ithers are successfu' while they canna get an engagement to save them. They blame the managers, and say a man can't get a start unless he have friends at coort. But it's no so, and I can prove it by the way I won my way.

I had done most of my work in Scotland when Mac and I and the wife began first really to dream aloud aboot my gae'in to London. Oh, aye, I'd been on tours that had crossed the border; I'd been to Sunderland, and Newcastle on Tyne, but everywhere I'd been there was plenty Soots folk, and they knew the Scots talk and were used to the flutter o' ma kilts. Not that they were no sae in England, further south, too—'deed, and the trouble was they were used too well to Scotch comedians there.

There'd been a time when it was enow for a man to put on a kilt and a bit o' plaid and sing his song in anything he thocht was Scottish. There'd been a fair wave o' such false Scottish comics in the English halls, until everyone was sick and tired o' 'em. Sae it was the managers all laughed at the idea of anither, and the one or twa faint tries I made to get an engagement in or near London took me nowheres at a'.

Still and a' I was set upon goin' to the big village on the Thames before I deed, and I'm an awfu' determined wee man when ma mind's well made up. Times I'd whisper a word to a friend in the profession, but they all laughed at me.

"Stick to where they know ye and like ye, Harry," they said, one and a'. "Why tempt fortune when you're doin' so well here?"

It did seem foolish. I was successful now beyond any dreams I had had in the beginning. The days when a salary of thirty five shillings a week had looked enormous made me smile as I looked back upon them. And it would ha' been a bold manager the noo who'd dared to offer Harry Lauder a guinea to sing twa-three songs of a nicht at a concert.

Had the wife been like maist women, timid and sair afraid that things wad gang wrang, I'd be singing in Scotland yet, I do believe. But she was as bad as me. She was as sure as I was that I couldna fail if ever I got the chance to sing in London.

"There's the same sort of folks there as here, Harry," she said. "Folks are the same, here and there, the wide world ower. Tak' your chance if it comes—ye'll no be losin' owt ye've got the noo if ye fail. But ye'll not fail, laddie—I ken that weel."

Still, resolving to tak' a chance if it came was not ma way. It's no man's way who gets anywheres in this world, I've found. There are men who canna e'en do so much—to whom chances come they ha' neither the wit to see nor the energy to seize upon. Such men one can but pity; they are born wi' somethin' lacking in them that a man needs. But there is anither sort, that I do not pity—I despise. They are the men who are always waiting for a chance. They point to this man or to that, and how he seized a chance—or how, perhaps, he failed to do so.

"If ever an opportunity like that comes tae me," ye'll hear them say, "just watch me tak' it! Opportunity'll ne'er ha' to knock twice upon my door."

All well and good. But opportunity is no always oot seekin doors to knock upon. Whiles she'll be sittin' hame, snug as a bug in a rug, waitin' fer callers, her ear cocked for the sound o' the knock on her door. Whiles the knock comes she'll lep' up and open, and that man's fortune is made frae that day forth. Ye maun e'en go seekin' opportunity yersel, if so be she's slow in coming to ye. It's so at any rate, I've always felt. I've waited for my chance to come, whiles, but whiles I've made the chance mysel', as well.

It was after the most successful of the tours Mac and I got up together, one of those in Galloway, that I got a week in Birkenhead. Anither artist was ill, and they just wired wad I come? I was free at the time, and glad o' the siller to be made, for the offer was a gude one, so I just went. That was firther south than I'd been yet; the audiences were English to the backbone wi' no Scots to speak of amang them.

No Scots, I say! But what audience ha' I e'er seen that didna hae its sprinklin' o' gude Scots? I've sang in 'most every part o' the world, and always, frae somewhere i' the hoose, I'll hear a Scots voice callin' me by name. Scots ha' made their way to every part o' the world, I'm knowin' the noo, and I'm sure of at least ane friend in any audience, hoo'ever new it be to me.

So, o' coorse, there were some Scots in that audience at Birkenhead. But because in that Mersey town most of the crowd was sure to be English, wi' a sprinkling o' Irish, the management had suggested that I should leave out my Scottish favorites when I made up my list o' songs. So I began wi' a sentimental ballad, went on wi' an English comic song, and finished with "Calligan-Call-Again," the very successful Irish song I had just added to my list.

Ye'Il ken, mebbe, if ye've heard me, that I can sing in English as good as the King's own when I've the mind to do it. I love my native land. I love Scots talk, Scots food, Scots—aweel, I was aboot to say something that would only sadden many of my friends in America. Hoots, though mebbe they'll no put me in jail if I say I liked a wee drappie o' Scottish liquor noo and again!

But it was no a hard thing for me not to use my Scottish tongue when I was singing there in Birkenhead, though it went sair against ma judgment. And one nicht, at the start of ma engagement, they were clamorous as I'd ne'er seen them sae far south.

"Gi'es more, Harry," I heard a Scottish voice roar. I'd sung my three songs; I'd given encores; I was bowing acknowledgment of the continuing applause. But I couldna stop the applauding. In America they say an artist "stops" the show when the audience applauds him so hard that it will not let the next turn go on, and that was what had happened that nicht in Birkenhead. I didna want to sing any of ma three songs ower again, and I had no main that waur no Scottish.

So I stood there, bowing and scraping, wi' the cries of "Encore," "Sing again, Harry," "Give us another," rising in all directions from a packed house. I raised ma hand, and they were still.

"Wad ye like a little Scotch?" I asked,

There was a roar of laughter, and then one Scottish voice bawled oot an answer.

"Aye, thank ye kindly, man Harry," it roared. "I'll tak' a wee drappie o' Glenlivet——"

The house roared wi' laughter again, and learned doon and spoke to the orchestra leader. It happened that I'd the parts for some of my ain songs wi' me, so I could gie them "Tobermory" and then "The Lass o' Killiecrankie."

Weel, the Scots songs were far better received than ever the English ones or the Irish melody had been. I smiled to mysel' and went back to ma dressin' room to see what micht be coming. Sure enough 'twas but twa-three meenits when the manager came in.

"Harry," he said, "you knocked them dead with those Scotch songs. Now do you see I was right from the start when I said you ought to sing them?"

I looked at the man and just smiled. He richt frae the start! It was he had told me not to sing ma Scottish songs—that English audiences were tired o' everything that had to do wi' a kilt or a pair o' brogues! But I let it pass.

"Oh, aye," I said, "they liked them fine, didn't they? So ye're thinkin' I'd better sing more Scotch the rest o' the week?"

"Better?" he said, and he laughed. "You'll have no choice, man. What one audience has heard the next one knows about. They'll make you sing those songs again, whether or no."

I've found that that is so—'deed, I knew it before he did. I never appear but that I've requests for practically every song I've ever sung. Some one remembers hearing me before when I was including them, or they've heard someone speak. I've been asked within a year to sing "Torralladdie"—the song I won a medal wi' at Glasga while I was still workin' in the pit at Hamilton! No evening is lang enow to sing all my songs in—all those I've gi'en my friends in my audiences at one time and anither in all these nearly thirty years I've been upon the stage. Else I'd be tryin' it, for the gude fun it wad be.

Anyway, every nicht after that the audience wanted its wee drappie o' Scotch, and got it, in good measure, for I love to sing the Scottish songs. And when the week was at an end I was promptly re-engaged for a return visit the next season, at the biggest salary that had yet been offered to me. I was a prood man the day; I felt it was a great thing that had come to me, there on the banks o' the Mersey, sae far frae hame and a', in the England they'd a' tauld me was hae nane o' me and ma sangs!

And that week was a turning point in ma life, tae. It chanced that, what wi' ane thing and anither, I was free for the next twa-three weeks. I'd plenty of engagements I could get, ye'll ken, but I'd not closed ma time yet wi' anyone. Some plans I'd had had been changed. So there I was. I could gang hame, and write a letter or twa, and be off in a day or so, singing again in the same auld way. Or—I could do what a' my friends tauld me was madness and worse to attempt. What did I do? I bocht a ticket for London!



CHAPTER X

There was method in my madness, tho', ye'll ken. Here was I, nearer far to London, in Birkenhead than I was in Glasga. Gi'en I was gae'in there some time, I could save my siller by going then. So off I went— resolved to go and look for opportunity where opportunity lived.

Ye'll ken I could see London was no comin' after me—didna like the long journey by train, maybe. So I was like Mahomet when the mountain wouldna gang to him. I needed London mair then than London needed me, and 'twas no for me to be prood and sit twiddlin' my thumbs till times changed.

I was nervous, I'll admit, when I reached the great toon. I was wrong to lash mysel', maybe, but it means a great deal to an artist to ha' the stamp o' London's approval upon him. 'Tis like the hall mark on a bit o' siller plate. Still and a' I could no see hoo they made oot I was sae foolish to be tryin' for London. Mebbe they were richt who said I could get no opening in a London hall. Mebbe the ithers were richt, too, who said that if I did the audience would howl me down and they'd ring doon the curtain on me. I didna believe that last, though, I'm tellin' ye—I was sure that I'd be as well received in London as I had been in Birkenhead, could I but mak' a manager risk giving me a turn.

Still I was nervous. The way it lookit to me, I had a' to gain and nothin' much tae lose. If I succeeded—ah, then there were no bounds to the future I saw before me! Success in London is like no success in the provinces. It means far more. I'd ha' sung for nothin'—'deed, and I'd ha' paid oot ma own good siller to get a turn at one of the big halls.

I had a London agent by that time, a mannie who booked engagements for me in the provinces. That was his specialty; he did little business in London itself. He was a decent body; he'd got me the week in Birkenhead, and I liked him fine. When I went to his office he jumped up and shook hands with me.

"Glad to see you, Lauder," he said. "Wish more of you singers and performers from the provinces would run up to London for a visit from time to time."

"I'm no precisely here on a veesit," I said, rather dryly. "What's chances of finding a shop here?"

"Lord, Lord have you got that bee in your bonnet, too, Harry," he asked, with a sigh. "You all do. You're doing splendidly in the provinces, Harry. You're making more money than some that are doing their turns at the Pay. and the Tiv. Why can't you be content?"

"I'm just not, that's a'," I said. "You think there's nae a chance for me here, then?"

"Not a chance in the world," he said, promptly. "It's no good, Harry, my boy. They don't want Scotch comics here any more. No manager would give you a turn now. If he did he'd be a fool, because his audience wouldn't stand for you. Stay where you belong in Scotland and the north. They can understand you, there, and know what you're singing about."

I could see there was no use arguing wi' him. And I could see something else, too. He was a good agent, and it was to his interest to get me as many engagements, and as good ones, as he could, since he got a commission on all I earned through him. But if he did not believe I could win an audience, what sort of man was he to be persuading a manner to gang against his judgment and gie me a chance in his theatre?

So I determined that I must see the managers mysel'. For, as I've taul ye before, I'm an awfu' persistent wee man when my mind's made up, and no easily to be moved from a resolution I've once ta'en. I was shaken a bit by the agent, I'll not mind tellin' ye, for it seemed to me he must know better than I. Who was Harry Lauder, after a', to set his judgment against that o' a man whose business it was to ken all aboot such things? Still, I was sae sure that I went on.

Next morning I met Mr. Walter F. Munroe, and he was gude enow to promise to introduce me to several managers. He took me off wi' him then and there, and we made a round o' all the music hall offices, and saw the managers, richt enow. Yell mind they were all agreeable and pleasant tae me. They said they were glad tae see me, and wrote me passes for their halls, and did a' they could tae mak' me feel at hame. But they wouldna gie me the turn I was asking for!

I think Munroe hadna been verra hopefu' frae the first, but he did a' I wanted o' him—gie'd me the opportunity to talk to the managers mysel'. Still, they made me feel my agent had been richt. They didna want a Scot on any terms at a', and that was all to it.

I was feelin' blue enow when it came time for lunch, but I couldna do less than ask Munroe if he'd ha' bit and sup wi' me, after the kindness he'd shown me. We went into a restaurant in the Strand. I was no hungry; I was tae sair at heart, for it lookit as if I maun gang hame and tell the wife my first trip to London had been a failure.

"By George—there's a man we've not seen!" said Munroe, suddenly, as we sat, verra glum and silent.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Tom Tinsley—the best fellow in London. You'll like him, whether he can do anything for you or not. I'll hail him——"

He did, and Mr. Tinsley came over toward our table. I liked his looks.

"He's the manager of Gatti's, in the Westminster Bridge Road," whispered Munroe. "Know it?"

I knew it as one of the smaller halls, but one with a decided reputation for originality and interesting bills, owing to the personality of its manager, who was never afraid to do a new thing that was out of the ordinary. I was glad I was going to meet him.

"Here's Harry Lauder wants to meet you, Tom," said Munroe. "Shake hands with him. You're both good fellows."

Tinsley was as cordial as he could be. We sat and chatted for a bit, and I managed to banish my depression, and keep up my end of the conversation in gude enow fashion, bad as I felt. But when, Munroe put in a word aboot ma business in London I saw a shadow come over Tinsley's face. I could guess how many times in a day he had to meet ambitious, struggling artists.

"So you're here looking for a shop, hey?" he said, turning to me. His manner was still pleasant enough, but much of his effusive cordiality had vanished. But I was not to be cast down. "What's your line?"

"Scotch comedian," I said. "I——"

He raised his hand, and laughed.

"Stop right there—that's done the trick! You've said enough. Now, look here, my dear boy, don't be angry, but there's no use. We've had Scotch comedians here in London before, and they're no good to us. I wish I could help you, but I really can't risk it."

"But you've not heard me sing," I said. "I'm different frae them ye talk of. Why not let me sing you a bit song and see if ye'll not think sae yersel?"

"I tell ye it's no use," he said, a little impatiently. "I know What my audiences like and what they don't. That's why I keep my hall going these days."

But Munroe spoke up in my favor, too; discouraging though he was we were getting more notice from Tinsley than we had had frae any o' the ithers! Ye can judge by that hoo they'd handled us.

"Oh, come, Tom," said Munroe. "It won't take much of your time to hear the man sing a song you do as much for all sorts of people every week. As a favor to me—come, now——"

"Well, if you put it like that," said Tinsley, reluctantly. He turned to me. "All right, Scotty," he said. "Drop around to my office at half past four and I'll see what's to be done for you. You can thank this nuisance of a Munroe for that—though it'll do you no good in the long run, you'll find, and just waste your time as well as mine!"

There was little enough incentive for me to keep that appointment. But I went, naturally. And, when I got there, I didn't sing for Tinsley. He was too busy to listen to me.

"You're in luck, just the same, Scotty," he said. "I'm a turn short, because someone's got sick. Just for to-night. If you'll bring your traps down about ten o'clock you can have a show. But I don't expect you to catch on. Don't be too disappointed if you don't. London's tired of your line."

"Leave that to me, Mr. Tinsley," I said. "I've knocked 'em in the provinces and I'll be surprised if I don't get a hand here in London. Folks must be the same here as in Birkenhead or Glasga!"

"Don't you ever believe that, or it will steer you out of your way," he answered. "They're a different sort altogether. You've got one of the hardest audiences in the world to please, right in this hall. I don't blame you for wanting to try it, though. If you should happen to bring it off your fortune's made."

I knew that as well as he. And I knew that now it was all for me to settle. I didn't mean to blame the audience if I didn't catch on; I knew there would be no one to blame but myself. If I sang as well as I could, if I remembered all my business, if, in a word, I did here what I'd been doing richt along at hame and in the north of England, I needn't be afraid of the result, I was sure.

And then, I knew then, as I know noo, that when ye fail it's aye yer ain fault, one way or anither.

I wadna ha' been late that nicht for anything. 'Twas lang before ten o'clock when I was at Gatti's, waiting for it to be my turn. I was verra tired; I'd been going aboot since the early morn, and when it had come supper time I'd been sae nervous I'd had no thought o' food, nor could I ha' eaten any, I do believe, had it been set before me.

Weel, waitin' came to an end, and they called me on. I went oot upon the stage, laughin' fit to kill mysel', and did the walk aroond. I was used, by that time, to havin' the hoose break into laughter at the first wee waggle o' my kilt, but that nicht it was awfu' still. I keened in that moment what they'd all meant when they'd tauld me a London audience was different frae any ever I'd clapped een upon. Not that my een saw that one—the hoose micht ha' been ampty, for ought I knew! The stage went around and around me.

I began wi' "Tobermory," a great favorite among my songs in yon days. And at the middle o' the first verse I heard a sound that warmed me and cheered me—the beginnings of a great laugh. The sound was like wind rising in the trees. It came down from the gallery, leaped across the stalls from the pit—oh, but it was the bonny, bonny sound to ma ears! It reached my heart—it went into my feet as I danced, it raised my voice for me!

"Tobermory" settled it—when they sang the chorus wi' me on the second voice, in a great, roaring measure, I knew I was safe. I gave them "Calligan-Vall-Again" then, and ended with "The Lass o' Killicrankie." I'd been supposed to ha' but a short turn, but it was hard for me to get off the stage. I never had an audience treat me better. 'Tis a great memory to this day—I'll ne'er forget that night in Gatti's old hall, no matter hoo lang I live.

But I was glad when I heard the shootin' and the clappin' dee doon, and they let the next turn go on. I was weak——I was nigh to faintin' as I made my way to my dressing room. I had no the strength to be changin' ma clothes, just at first, and I was still sittin' still, tryin' to pull mysel' together, when Tinsley came rushing in. He clapped his hand on my shoulder.

"Lauder, my lad, you've done it!" he cried. "I never thought you could—you've proved every manager in London an ass to-night!"

"You think I'll do?" I asked.

He was a generous man, was Tinsley.

"Do!" he said. "You've made the greatest hit of the week when the news gets out, and you'll be having the managers from the West End halls camping on your doorstep. I've seen nothing like it in years. All London will be flocking here the rest in a long time."

I needn't say, I suppose, that I was immediately engaged for the rest of that week at Gatti's. And Tinsley's predictions were verified, for the managers from the west end came to me as soon as the news of the hit I had made reached them. I bore them no malice, though some of them had been ruder than they need ha' been when I went to see them. They'd had their chance; had they listened to me and recognized what I could do, they could ha' saved their siller. I'd ha' signed a contract at a pretty figure less the day after I reached London than I was willin' to consider the morning after I'd had my show at Gatti's.

I made verra profitable and happy arrangements wi' several halls, thanks to the London custom that's never spread much to America, that lets an artist appear at sometimes as many as five halls in a nicht. The managers were still surprised; so was my agent.

"There's something about you they take to, though I'm blowed if I see what it is!" said one manager, with extreme frankness.

Noo, I'm a modest man, and it's no for me to be tellin' them that feel as he did what it is, maybe, they don't see. 'Deed, and I'm no sure I know mysel'. But here's a bit o' talk I heard between two costers as I was leavin' Gatti's that first nicht.

"Hi, Alf, wot' jer fink o' that Scotch bloke?" one of them asked his mate.

The other began to laugh.

"Blow me, 'Ennery, d'ye twig what 'e meant? I didn't," he said. "Not 'arf! But, lu'mme, eyen't he funny?"

Weel, after a', a manager can no do mair than his best, puir chiel. They thocht they were richt when they would no give me a turn. They thocht they knew their audiences. But the two costers could ha' told them a thing or two. It was just sicca they my agent and the managers and a' had thocht would stand between me and winning a success in London. And as it's turned out it's the costers are my firmest friends in the great city!

Real folk know one anither, wherever they meet. If I just steppit oot upon the stage and sang a bit song or twa, I'd no be touring the world to-day. I'd be by hame in Scotland, belike I'd be workin' in the pit still. But whene'er I sing a character song I study that character. I know all aboot him. I ken hoo he feels and thinks, as weel as hoo he looks. Every character artist must do that, whether he is dealing with Scottish types or costers or whatever.

It was astonishin' to me hoo soon they came to ken me in London, so that I wad be recognized in the streets and wherever I went. I had an experience soon after I reached the big toon that was a bit scary at the first o' it.

I was oot in a fog. Noo, I'm a Scot, and I've seen fogs in my time, but that first "London Particular" had me fair puzzled. Try as I would I couldna find ma way down Holborn to the Strand. I was glad tae see a big policeman looming up in the mist.

"Here, ma chiel," I asked him, "can ye not put me in the road for the Strand?"

He looked at me, and then began to laugh. I was surprised.

"Has onything come ower you?" I asked him. I could no see it was a laughing matter that I should be lost in a London fog. I was beginning to feel angry, too. But he only laughed louder and louder, and I thocht the man was fou, so I made to jump away, and trust someone else to guide me. But he seized my arm, and pulled me back, and I decided, as he kept on peering at my face, that I must look like some criminal who was wanted by the police.

"Look here—leave me go!" I cried, thoroughly alarmed. "You've got the wrong man. I'm no the one you're after."

"Are ye no?" he asked me, laughing still. "Are ye no Harry Lauder? Ye look like him, ye talk like him! An' fancy meetin' ye here! Last time I saw ye was in New Cumnock—gie's a shak o' yer haund!"

I shook hands wi' him gladly enough, in my relief, even though he nearly shook the hand off of me. I told him where I was playing the nicht.

"Come and see me," I said. "Here's a bob to buy you a ticket wi'."

He took it, and thanked me. Then, when he had put it awa', he leaned forward.

"Can ye no gie me a free pass for the show, man Harry?" he whispered.

Oh, aye, there are true Scots on the police in London!



CHAPTER XI

Many a strange experience has come to me frae the way it's so easy for folk's that ha' seen me on the stage, or ha' nae mair than seen my picture, maybe, to recognize me. 'Tis an odd thing, too, the confidences that come to me—and to all like mysel', who are known to the public. Folks will come to me, and when I've the time to listen, they'll tell me their most private and sacred affairs. I dinna quite ken why—I know I've heard things told to me that ha' made me feel as a priest hearing confession must.

Some of the experiences are amusing; some ha' been close to being tragic—not for me, but for those who came to me. I'm always glad to help when I can, and it's a strange thing how often ye can help just by lendin' a fellow creature the use o' your ears for a wee space. I've a time or two in mind I'll be tellin' ye aboot.

But it's the queer way a crowd gathers it took me the longest to grow used to. It was mair sae in London than I'd ever known it before. In Scotland they'd no be followin' Harry Lauder aboot—a Scot like themselves! But in London, and in special when I wore ma kilt, it was different.

It wasna lang, after I'd once got ma start in London, before I was appearing regularly in the East End halls. I was a great favorite there; the Jews, especially, seemed to like me fine. One Sunday I was down Petticoat Lane, in Whitechapel, to see the sichts. I never thocht anyone there wad recognize me, and I stood quietly watching a young Jew selling clothes from a coster's barrow. But all at once another Jew came up to me, slapped me on the back, and cried oot: "Ach, Mr. Lauder, and how you vas to-day? I vish there vas a kilt in the Lane— you would have it for nothing!"

In a minute they were flocking around me. They all pulled me this way, and that, slapped me on the back, embraced me. It was touching, but— weel, I was glad to get awa', which I did so soon as I could wi'oot hurtin' the feelings of my gude friends the Hebrews.

The Hebrews are always very demonstrative. I'm as fond o' them as, thank fortune, they are o' me. They make up a fine and appreciative audience. They know weel what they like, and why they like it, and they let you ken hoo they feel. They are an artistic race; more so than most others, I think. They've had sair misfortunes to bear, and they've borne them weel.

One nicht I was at Shoreditch, playing in the old London Music Hall. The East Enders had gi'en me a fairly terrific reception that evening, and when it was time for me to be off to the Pavilion for my next turn they were so crowded round the stage door that I had to ficht ma way to ma brougham. It was a close call for me, onyway, that nicht, and I was far frae pleased when a young man clutched me by the hand.

"Let me get off, my lad!" I cried, sharply. "I'm late for the 'Pav.' the noo! Wait till anither nicht——"

"All right, 'Arry," he said, not a bit abashed. "I vas just so glad to know you vas doing so vell in business. You're a countryman of mine, and I'm proud o' you!"

Late though I was, I had to laugh at that. He was an unmistakable Jew, and a Londoner at that. But I asked him, as I got into my car, to what country he thought we both belonged.

"Vy! I'm from Glasgow!" he said, much offended. "Scotland forever!"

So far as I know the young man had no ulterior motive in claiming to be a fellow Scot. But to do that has aye been a favorite trick of cadgers and beggars. I mind weel a time when I was leaving a hall, and a rare looking bird collared me. He had a nose that showed only too plainly why he was in trouble, and a most unmistakably English voice. But he'd taken the trouble to learn some Scots words, though the accent was far ayant him.

"Eh, Harry, man," he said, jovially. "Here's the twa o' us, Scots far frae hame. Wull ye no lend me the loan o' a twopence?"

"Aye," I said, and gi'ed it him. "But you a Scot! No fear! A Scot wad ha' asked me for a tanner—and got it, tae!"

He looked very thoughtful as he stared at the two broad coppers I left on his itching palm. He was reflecting, I suppose, on the other fourpence he might ha' had o' me had he asked them! But doubtless he soon spent what he did get in a pub.

There were many times, though, and are still, when puir folk come to me wi' a real tale o' bad luck or misfortune to tell. It's they who deserve it the most are most backward aboot asking for a loan; that I've always found. It's a sair thing to decide against geevin' help; whiles, though, you maun feel that to do as a puir body asks is the worst thing for himsel'.

I mind one strange and terrible thing that came to me. It was in Liverpool, after I'd made my London success—long after. One day, while I was restin' in my dressing room, word was brocht to me that a bit lassie who looked as if she micht be in sair trouble wad ha' a word wi' me. I had her up, and saw that she was a pretty wee creature —no more than eighteen. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes a deep blue, and very large, and she had lovely, curly hair. But it took no verra keen een to see she was in sair trouble indeed. She had been greetin' not sae lang syne, and her een were red and swollen frae her weeping.

"Eh, my, lassie," I said, "can I help ye, then? But I hope you're no in trouble."

"Oh, but I am, Mr. Lauder!" she cried. "I'm in the very greatest trouble. I can't tell you what it is—but—you can help me. It's about your cousin—if you can tell me where I can find him——"

"My cousin, lassie?" I said. "I've no cousin you'd be knowing. None of my cousins live in England—they're all beyond the Tweed."

"But—but—your cousin Henry—who worked here in Liverpool—who always stayed with you at the hotel when you were here?"

Oh, her story was too easy to read! Puir lassie—some scoundrel had deceived her and betrayed her. He'd won her confidence by pretending to be my cousin—why, God knows, nor why that should have made the lassie trust him. I had to break the truth to her, and it was terrible to see her grief.

"Oh!" she cried. "Then he has lied to me! And I trusted him utterly— with everything I could!"

It was an awkward and painful position for me—the worst I can bring to mind. That the scoundrel should have used my name made matters worse, from my point of view. The puir lassie was in no condition to leave the theatre when it came time for my turn, so I sent for one o' the lady dressers and arranged for her to be cared for till later. Then, after my turn, I went back, and learned the whole story.

It was an old story enough. A villain had betrayed this mitherless lassie; used her as a plaything for months, and then, when the inevitable happened, deserted her, leaving her to face a stern father and a world that was not likely to be tender to her. The day she came to me her father had turned her oot—to think o' treatin' one's ain flesh and blood so!

There was little enow that I could do. She had no place to gae that nicht, so I arranged wi' the dresser, a gude, motherly body, to gie her a lodging for the nicht, and next day I went mysel' to see her faither—a respectable foreman he turned oot to be. I tault him hoo it came that I kenned aboot his dochter's affairs, and begged him would he no reconsider and gie her shelter? I tried to mak' him see that onyone micht be tempted once to do wrong, and still not be hopelessly lost, and asked him would he no stand by his dochter in her time o' sair trouble.

He said ne'er a word whiles I talked. He was too quiet, I knew. But then, when I had said all I could, he told me that the girl was no longer his dochter. He said she had brought disgrace upon him and upon a godly hoose, and that he could but hope to forget that she had ever lived. And he wished me good day and showed me the door.

I made such provision for the puir lassie as I could, and saw to it that she should have gude advice. But she could no stand her troubles. Had her faither stood by her—but, who kens, who kens? I only know that a few weeks later I learned that she had drowned herself. I would no ha' liked to be her faither when he learned that.

Thank God I ha' few such experiences as that to remember. But there's a many that were more pleasant. I've made some o' my best friends in my travels. And the noo, when the wife and I gang aboot the world, there's good folk in almost every toon we come to to mak' us feel at hame. I've ne'er been one to stand off and refuse to have ought to do wi' the public that made me and keeps me. They're a' my friends, that clap me in an audience, till they prove that they're no'—and sometimes it's my best friends that seem to be unkindest to me!

There's no way better calculated to get a crowd aboot than to be hurryin' through the streets o' London in a motor car and ha' a breakdoon! I've been lucky as to that; I've ne'er been held up more than ten minutes by such trouble, but it always makes me nervous when onything o' the sort happens. I mind one time I was hurrying from the Tivoli to a hall in the suburbs, and on the Thames Embankment something went wrang.

I was worried for fear I'd be late, and I jumped oot to see what was wrang. I clean forgot I was in the costume for my first song at the new hall—it had been my last, tae, at the Tiv. I was wearin' kilt, glengarry, and all the costume for the swab germ' corporal o' Hielanders in "She's Ma Daisy." D'ye mind the song? Then ye'll ken hoo I lookit, oot there on the Embankment, wi' the lichts shinin' doon on me and a', and me dancin' aroond in a fever o' impatience to be off!

At once a crowd was aroond me—where those London crowds spring frae I've ne'er been able to guess. Ye'll be bowlin' alang a dark, empty street. Ye stop—and in a second they're all aboot ye. Sae it was that nicht, and in no time they were all singin', if ye please! They sang the choruses of my songs—each man, seemingly, picking a different yin! Aye, it was comical—so comical it took my mind frae the delay.



CHAPTER XII

I was crackin' yin or twa the noo aboot them that touch ye for a bawbee noo and then. I ken fine the way folks talk o' me and say I'm close fisted. Maybe I am a' that. I'm a Scot, ye ken, and the Scots are a close fisted people. I'm no sayin' yet whether yon's a fault or a virtue. I'd fain be talkin' a wee bit wi' ye aboot it first.

There's aye ither things they're fond o' saying aboot a Scot. Oh, aye, I've heard folk say that there was but the ane way to mak' a Scot see a joke, an' that was to bore a hole in his head first. They're sayin' the Scots are a folk wi'oot a sense o' humor. It may be so, but ye'll no be makin' me think so—not after all these years when they've been laughin' at me. Conceited, is that? Weel, ha' it yer ane way.

We Scots ha' aye lived in a bonny land, but a land that made us work hard for what it gie'd us. It was no smiling, easy going southern country like some. It was no land where it was easy to mak' a living, wi' bread growing on one tree, and milk in a cocoanut on another, and fruits and berries enow on all sides to keep life in the body of ye, whether ye worked or no.

There's no great wealth in Scotland. Her greatest riches are her braw sons and daughters, the Scots folk who've gone o'er a' the world. The land is full o' rocks and hills. The man who'd win a crop o' rye or oats maun e'en work for the same. And what a man works hard for he's like to value more than what comes easy to his hand. Sae it's aye been with the Scots, I'm thinking. We've had little, we Scottish folk, that's no cost us sweat and labor, o' one sort or anither. We've had to help ourselves, syne there was no one else had the time to gie us help.

Noo, tak' this close fisted Scot they're a' sae fond o' pokin' fun at. Let's consider ane o' the breed. Let's see what sort o' life has he been like to ha' led. Maybe so it wull mak' us see hoo it came aboot that he grew mean, as the English are like to be fond o' calling him.

Many and many the canny Scot who's made a great place for himsel' in the world was born and brocht up in a wee village in a glen. He'd see poverty all aboot him frae the day his een were opened. It's a hard life that's lived in many a Scottish village. A grand life, aye—ne'er think I'm not meaning that. I lived hard masel', when I was a bit laddie, but I'd no gie up those memories for ought I could ha' had as a rich man's son. But a hard life.

A laddie like the one I ha' in mind would be seein' the auld folk countin' every bawbee because they must. He'd see, when he was big enow, hoo the gude wife wad be shakin' her head when his faither wanted, maybe, an extra ounce or twa o' thick black.

"We maun think o' the bairn, Jock," she'd be saying. "Put the price of it in the kist, Jock—ye'll no be really needin' that."

He'd see the auld folk makin' auld clothes do; his mither patching and mending; his faither getting up when there was just licht to see by in the morn and working aboot the place to mak' it fit to stand the storms and snows and winds o' winter, before he went off to his long day's work. And he'd see all aboot him a hard working folk, winning from a barren soil that they loved because they had been born upon it.

Maybe it's meanness for folk like that to be canny, to be saving, to be putting the bawbees they micht be spending on pleasure in the kist on the mantel where the pennies drop in one by one, sae slow but sure. But your Scot's seen sickness come in the glen. He kens fine that sometimes there'll be those who couldna save, no matter how they tried. And he'll remember, aye, most Scots will be able to remember, how the kists on a dozen mantels ha' been broken into to gie help to a neighbor in distress wi'oot a thocht that there was ought else for a body to do but help when there was trouble and sorrow in a neighbor's hoose.

Aye, I've heard hard jokes cracked aboot the meanness o' the Scot. Your Scot, brocht up sae in a glen, will gang oot, maybe, and fare into strange lands to mak' his living when he's grown—England, or the colonies, or America. Where-over he gaes, there he'll tak' wi' him the canniness, the meanness if ye maun call it such, his childhood taught him. He'll be thrown amang them who've ne'er had to gie thocht to the morrow and the morrow's morrow; who, if ever they've known the pinch o' poverty, ha' clean forgotten.

But wull he care what they're thinkin' o' him, and saying, maybe, behind his back? Not he, if he be a true Scot. He'll gang his ain gait, satisfied if he but think he's doing richt as he sees and believes the richt to be. Your Scot wad be beholden to no man. The thocht of takin' charity is abhorrent to him, as to few ither folk on earth. I've told of hoo, in a village if trouble comes to a hame, there'll be a ready help frae ithers no so muckle better off. But that's no charity, ye ken! For ilka hoose micht be the next in trouble; it's one for a' and a' for one in a Scottish glen. Aye, we're a clannish folk, we Scots; we stand together.

I ken fine the way they're a' like to talk o' me. There's a tale they tell o' me in America, where they're sae fond o' joking me aboot ma Scotch closefistedness. They say, yell ken, that I was playing in a theatre once, and that when the engagement was ended I gie'd photographs o' masel to all the stage hands picture postcards. I called them a' together, ye ken, and tauld them I was gratefu' to them for the way they'd worked wi' me and for me, and wanted to gie 'em something they could ha' to remember me by.

"Sae here's my picture, laddies," I said, "and when I come again next year I'll sign them for you."

Weel, noo, that's true enough, nae doot—I've done just that, more than the ane time. Did I no gie them money, too? I'm no saying did I or did I no. But ha' I no the richt to crack a joke wi' friends o' mine like the stage hands I come to ken sae well when I'm in a theatre for a week's engagement?

I've a song I'm singing the noo. In it I'm an auld Scottish sailor. I'm pretendin', in the song, that I'm aboot to start on a lang voyage. And I'm tellin' my friends I'll send them a picture postcard noo and then frae foreign parts.

"Yell ken fine it's frae me," I tell my friends, "because there'll be no stamp on the card when it comes tae ye!"

Always the audience roars wi' laughter when I come to that line. I ken fine they're no laughin' at the wee joke sae much as at what they're thinkin' o' me and a' they've heard o' my tightness and closeness. Do they think any Scot wad care for the cost of a stamp? Maybe it would anger an Englishman did a postcard come tae him wi'oot a stamp. It wad but amuse a Scot; he'd no be carin' one way or anither for the bawbee the stamp wad cost. And here's a funny thing tae me. Do they no see I'm crackin' a joke against masel'? And do they think I'd be doing that if I were close the way they're thinkin' I am?

Aye, but there's a serious side tae all this talk o' ma being sae close. D'ye ken hoo many pleas for siller I get each and every day o' ma life? I could be handin' it out frae morn till nicht! The folk that come tae me that I've ne'er clapped een upon! The total strangers who think they've nowt to do but ask me for what they want! Men will ask me to lend them siller to set themselves up in business. Lassies tell me in a letter they can be gettin' married if I'll but gie them siller to buy a trousseau with. Parents ask me to lend them the money to educate their sons and send them to college.

And, noo, I'll be asking you—why should they come tae me? Because I'm before the public—because they think they know I ha' the siller? Do they nae think I've friends and relatives o' my ain that ha' the first call upon me? Wad they, had they the chance, help every stranger that came tae them and asked? Hoo comes it folk can lose their self-respect sae?

There's folk, I've seen them a' ma life, who put sae muckle effort into trying to get something for nowt that they ha' no time or leisure to work. They're aye sae busy writin' begging letters or working it aroond sae as to get to see a man or a woman they ken has mair siller than he or she needs that they ha' nae the time to mak' any effort by their ain selves. Wad they but put half the cleverness into honest toil that they do into writin' me a letter or speerin' a tale o' was to wring my heart, they could earn a' the siller they micht need for themselves.

In ma time I've helped many a yin. And whiles I've been sorry, I've been impressed by an honest tale o' sorrow and distress. I've gi'en its teller what he asked, or what I thocht he needed. And I've seen the effect upon him. I've seen hoo he's thocht, after that, that there was aye the sure way to fill his needs, wi'oot effort or labor.

'T'is a curious thing hoo such things hang aboot the stage. They're aye an open handed lot, the folks o' the stage. They help one another freely. They're always the first to gie their services for a benefit when there's a disaster or a visitation upon a community. They'll earn their money and gie it awa' to them that's in distress. Yet there's few to help them, save themselves, when trouble comes to them.

There's another curious thing I've foond. And that's the way that many a man wull go tae ony lengths to get a free pass for the show. He'll come tae me. He'll be wanting tae tak' me to dinner, he'll ask me and the wife to ride in a motor, he'll do ought that comes into his head— and a' that he may be able to look to me for a free ticket for the playhoose! He'll be seekin' to spend ten times what the tickets wad cost him that he may get them for nothing. I canna understand that in a man wi' sense enough to mak' a success in business, yet every actor kens weel that it's sae.

What many a man calls meanness I call prudence. I think if we talked more o' that virtue, prudence, and less o' that vice, meanness—for I'm as sure as you can be that meanness is a vice—we'd come nearer to the truth o' this matter, mayhap.

Tak' a savage, noo. He'll no be mean or savin': He'll no be prudent, either. He lives frae hand tae mooth. When mankind became a bit more prudent, when man wanted to know, any day, where the next day's living was to come frae, then civilization began, and wi' it what many miscall meanness. Man wad be laying aside some o' the food frae a day o' plenty against the time o' famine. Why, all literature is fu' o' tales o' such things. We all heard the yarn o' the grasshopper and the ant at our mither's knee. Some o' us ha' ta'en profit from the same; some ha' nicht. That's the differ between the prudent man and the reckless yin. And the prudent man can afford to laugh when the ither calls him mean. Or sae I'll gae on thinkin' till I'm proved wrong, at any rate.

I've in mind a man I know weel. He's a sociable body. He likes fine to gang aboot wi' his friends. But he's no rich, and he maun be carefu' wi' his siller, else the wife and the bairns wull be gae'in wi'oot things he wants them to have. Sae, when he'll foregather, of an evening, wi' his friends, in a pub., maybe, he'll be at the bar. He's no teetotaller, and when some one starts standing a roond o' drinks he'll tak' his wi' the rest. And he'll wait till it comes his turn to stand aroond, and he'll do it, too.

But after he's paid for the drinks, he'll aye turn toward the door, and nod to all o' them, and say:

"Weel, lads, gude nicht. I'll be gae'n hame the noo."

They'll be thinking he's mean, most like. I've heard them, after he's oot the door, turn to ane anither, and say:

"Did ye ever see a man sae mean as Wully?"

And he kens fine the way they're talking, but never a bean does he care. He kens, d'ye see, hoo he maun be using his money. And the siller a second round o' drinks wad ha' cost him went to his family— and, sometimes, if the truth be known, one o' them that was no sae "mean" wad come aroond to see Wully at his shop.

"Man, Wull," he'd say. "I'm awfu' short. Can ye no lend me the loan o' five bob till Setterday?"

And he'd get the siller—and not always be paying it back come Setterday, neither. But Wull wad no be caring, if he knew the man needed it. Wull, thanks to his "meanness," was always able to find the siller for sicca loan. And I mind they did no think he was so close then. And he's just one o' many I've known; one o' many who's heaped coals o' fire on the heads of them that's thocht to mak' him a laughing stock.

I'm a grand hand for saving. I believe in it. I'll preach thrift, and I'm no ashamed to say I've practiced it. I like to see it, for I ken, ye'll mind, what it means to be puir and no to ken where the next day's needs are to be met. And there's things worth saving beside siller. Ha' ye ne'er seen a lad who spent a' his time a coortin' the wee lassies? He'd gang wi' this yin and that. Nicht after nicht ye'd see him oot—wi' a different lassie each week, belike. They'd a' like him fine; they'd be glad tae see him comin' to their door. He'd ha' a reputation in the toon for being a great one wi' the lassies, and ither men, maybe, wad envy him.

Oftimes there'll be a chiel o' anither stamp to compare wi' such a one as that. They'll ca' him a woman hater, when the puir laddie's nae sicca thing. But he's no the trick o' making himsel' liked by the bit lassies. He'd no the arts and graces o' the other. But all the time, mind ye, he's saving something the other laddie's spending.

I mind twa such laddies I knew once, when I was younger. Andy could ha' his way wi' any lassie, a'most, i' the toon. Just so far he'd gang. Ye'd see him, in the gloamin', roamin' wi' this yin and that one. They'd talk aboot him, and admire him. Jamie—he was reserved and bashfu', and the lassies were wont to laugh at him. They thocht he was afraid of them; whiles they thocht he had nae use for them, whatever, and was a woman hater. It was nae so; it was just that Jamie was waiting. He knew that, soon or late, he'd find the yin who meant mair to him than a' the ither lassies i' the world put together.

And it was sae. She came to toon, a stranger. She was a wee, bonnie creature, wi' bricht een and bright cheeks; she had a laugh that was like music in your ears. Half the young men in the toon went coortin' her frae the moment they first clapped een upon her. Andy and Jamie was among them—aye, Jamie the woman hater, the bashfu' yin!

And, wad ye believe it, it was Jamie hung on and on when all the ithers had gie'n up the chase and left the field to Andy? She liked them both richt weel; that much we could all see. But noo it was that Andy found oot that he'd been spending what he had wi' tae free a hand. Noo that he loved a lassie as he'd never dreamed he could love anyone, he found he could say nowt to her he had no said to a dozen or a score before her. The protestations that he made rang wi' a familiar sound in his ain ears—hoo could he mak' them convincing to her?

And it was sae different wi' Jamie; he'd ne'er wasted his treasure o' love, and thrown a wee bit here and a wee bit there. He had it a' to lay at the feet o' his true love, and there was little doot in ma mind, when I saw hoo things were gae'in, o' what the end on't wad be. And, sure enow, it was no Andy, the graceful, the popular one, who married her—it was the puir, salt Jamie, who'd saved the siller o' his love—and, by the way, he'd saved the ither sort o' siller, tae, sae that he had a grand little hoose to tak' his bride into, and a hoose well furnished, and a' paid for, too.

Aye, I'll no be denyin' the Scot is a close fisted man. But he's close fisted in more ways than one. Ye'll ca' a man close fisted and mean by that just that he's slow to open his fist to let his siller through it. But doesna the closed fist mean more than that when you come to think on't? Gie'n a man strike a blow wi' the open hand—it'll cause anger, maybe a wee bit pain. But it's the man who strikes wi' his fist closed firm who knocks his opponent doon. Ask the Germans what they think o' the close fisted Scots they've met frae ane end o' France to the other!

And the Scot wull aye be slow to part wi' his siller. He'll be wanting to know why and hoo comes it he should be spending his bawbees. But he'll be slow to part wi' other things, too. He'll keep his convictions and his loyalty as he keeps his cash. His love will no be lyin' in his open palm for the first comer to snatch awa'. Sae wull it be, tae, wi' his convictions. He had them yesterday; he keeps them to- day; they'll still be his to-morrow.

Aye, the Scott'll be a close fisted, hard man—a strang man, tae, an' one for ye to fear if you're his enemy, but to respect withal, and to trust. Ye ken whaur the man stands who deals wi' his love and his friends and his siller as does the Scot. And ne'er think ye can fash him by callin' him mean.

Wull it sound as if I were boastin' if I talk o' what Scots did i' the war? What British city was it led the way, in proportion to its population, in subscribing to the war loans? Glasga, I'm tellin' ye, should ye no ken for yersel'. And ye'll no be needing me to tell ye hoo Scotland poured out her richest treasure, the blood of her sons, when the call came. The land that will spend lives, when the need arises, as though they were water, is the land that men ha' called mean and close! God pity the man who canna tell the difference between closeness and common sense!

There's nae merit in saving, I'll admit, unless there's a reason for't. The man who willna spend his siller when the time comes I despise as much as can anyone. But I despise, too, or I pity, the poor spendthrift who canna say "No!" when it wad be folly for him to spend his siller. Sicca one can ne'er meet the real call when it comes; he's bankrupt in the emergency. And that's as true of a nation as of a man by himsel'.

In the wartime men everywhere came to learn the value o' saving—o' being close fisted. Men o' means went proodly aboot, and showed their patched clothes, where the wife had put a new seat in their troosers— 't'was a badge of honor, then, to show worn shoes, old claes.

Weel, was it only then, and for the first time, that it was patriotic for a man to be cautious and saving? Had we all practiced thrift before the war, wad we no hae been in a better state tae meet the crisis when it came upon us? Ha' we no learned in all these twa thousand years the meaning o' the parable o' the wise virgin and her lamp?

It's never richt for a man or a country tae live frae hand to mooth, save it be necessary. And if a man breaks the habit o' sae doin' it's seldom necessary. The amusement that comes frae spendin' siller recklessly dinna last; what does endure is the comfort o' kennin' weel that, come what may, weel or woe, ye'll be ready. Siller in the bank is just a symbol o' a man's ain character; it's ane o' many ways ither man have o' judging him and learnin' what sort he is.

So I'm standing up still for Scotland and my fellow countrymen. Because they'd been close and near in time of plenty they were able to spend as freely as was needfu' when the time o' famine and sair trouble came. So let's be havin' less chattering o' the meanness o' the Scot, and more thocht o' his prudence and what that last has meant to the Empire in the years o' war.



CHAPTER XIII

Folk ask me, whiles, hoo it comes that I dwell still sae far frae the centre o' the world—as they've a way o' dubbin London! I like London, fine, ye'll ken. It's a grand toon. I'd be an ungrateful chiel did I no keep a warm spot for the place that turned me frae a provincial comic into what I'm lucky enow to be the day. But I'm no wishfu' to pass my days and nichts always in the great city. When I've an engagement there, in the halls or in a revue, 'tis weel enow, and I'm happy. But always and again there'll be somethin' tae mak' me mindfu' o' the Clyde and ma wee hoose at Dunoon, and ma thochts wull gae fleein' back to Scotland.

It's ma hame—that's ane thing. There's a magic i' that word, for a' it's sae auld. But there's mair than that in the love I ha' for Dunoon and all Scotland. The city's streets—aye, they're braw, whiles, and they've brocht me happiness and fun, and will again, I'm no dootin'. Still—oh, listen tae me whiles I speak o' the city and the glen! I'm a loon on that subject, ye'll be thinkin', maybe, but can I no mak' ye see, if ye're a city yin, hoo it is I feel?

London's the most wonderfu' city i' the world, I do believe. I ken ithers will be challenging her. New York, Chicago—braw cities, both. San Francisco is mair picturesque than any, in some ways. In Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide—I like them a'. But old London, wi' her traditions, her auld history, her wondrous palaces— and, aye, her slums!

I'm no a city man. I'm frae the glen, and the glen's i' the blood o' me to stay. I've lived in London. Whiles, after I first began to sing often in London and the English provinces, I had a villa at Tooting—a modest place, hamely and comfortable. But the air there was no the Scottish air; the heather wasna there for ma een to see when they opened in the morn; the smell o' the peat was no in ma nostrils.

I gae a walkin' in the city, and the walls o' the hooses press in upon me as if they would be squeezing the breath frae ma body. The stones stick to the soles o' ma shoon and drag them doon, sae that it's an effort to lift them at every step. And at hame, I walk five miles o'er the bonny purple heather and am no sae tired as after I've trudged the single one o'er London brick and stone.

Ye ken ma song, "I love a lassie"? Aweel, it's sae that I think of my Scottish countryside. London's a grand lady, in her silks and her satins, her paint and her patches. But the country's a bonnie, bonnie lassie, as pure as the heather in the dell. And it's the wee lassie that I love.

There's a sicht ye can see as oft in the city as in the country. It's that o' a lover and his lass a walkin' in the gloamin'. And it's a sicht that always tears at my heart in the city, and fills me wi' sorrow and wi' sympathy for the puir young creatures, that's missin' sae much o' the best and bonniest time o' their lives, and ne'er knowin' it, puir things!

Lang agane I'd an engagement at the Paragon Music Hall—it must be many and many a year agane. One evening I was going through the City in my motor car—the old City, that echoes to the tread of the business man by day, and at nicht is sae lane and quiet, wi' all the folk awa'. The country is quiet at nicht, tae, but it's quiet in a different way. For there the hum o' insects fills the air, and there's the music o' a brook, and the wind rustling in the tops o' the trees, wi' maybe a hare starting in the heather. It's the quiet o' life that's i' the glen at nicht, but i' the auld, auld City the quiet is the quiet o' death.

Weel, that nicht I was passing through Threadneedle street, hard by the Bank of England, that great, grey building o' stane. And suddenly, on the pavement, I saw them—twa young things, glad o' the stillness, his arm aboot her waist, their een turned upon one another, thinking o' nothing else and no one else i' a' the world.

I was sae sorry for them, puir weans! They had'na e'er ta'en a bit walk by their twa selves in the purple gloaming. They knew nothing o' the magic of a shady lane, wi' the branches o' old trees meeting over their heads. When they wad be togither they had to flee tae some such dead spot as this, or flaunt their love for one another in a busy street, where all who would micht laugh at them, as folk ha' a way o' doing, thoughtlessly, when they see the miracle o' young love, that is sae old that it is always young.

And yet, I saw the lassie's een. I saw the way he looked at her. It was for but a moment, as I passed. But I wasna sorry for them mair. For the miracle was upon them. And in their een, dinna doot it, the old, grey fronts o' the hooses were green trees. The pavement beneath their feet was the saft dirt o' a country road, or the bonny grass.

City folk do long, I'm sure o' it, for the glen and the beauty o' the countryside. Why else do they look as they do, and act as they do, when I sing to them o' the same? And I've the memory of what many a one has said to me, wi' tears in his een.

"Oh, Harry—ye brocht the auld hame to ma mind when ye sang o' roaming in the gloaming! And—the wee hoose amang the heather!"

'Tis the hamely songs I gie 'em o' the country they aye love best, I find. But why will they be content wi' what I bring them o' the glen and the dell? Why will they no go back or oot, if they're city born, and see for themselves? It's business holds some; others ha' other reasons. But, dear, dear, 'tis no but a hint o' the glamour and the freshness and the beauty o' the country that ma songs can carry to them. No but a hint! Ye canna bottle the light o' the moon on Afton Water; ye canna bring the air o' a Hieland moor to London in a box.

Will ye no seek to be oot sae much o' the year as ye can? It may be true that your affairs maun keep you living in the city. But whiles ye can get oot in the free air. Ye can lee doon upon yer back on the turf and look up at the blue sky and the bricht sun, and hear the skylark singing high above ye, or the call o' the auld hoot owl at nicht.

I think it's the evenings, when I'm held a prisoner in the city, mak' me lang maist for the country. There's a joy to a country evening. Whiles it's winter. But within it's snug. There's the wind howling doon the chimney, but there's the fire blazing upon the hearth, and the kettle singing it's bit sang on the hob. And all the family will be in frae work, tired but happy. Some one wull start a sang to rival the kettle; we've a poet in Scotland. 'Twas the way ma mither wad sing the sangs o' Bobby Burns made me sure, when I was a bit laddie, that I must, if God was gude tae me, do what I could to carry on the work o' that great poet.

There's plenty o' folk who like the country for rest and recreation. But they canna understand hoo it comes that folk are willing to stay there all their days and do the "dull country work." Aye, but it's no sae dull, that work in the country. There's less monotony in it, in ma een, than in the life o' the clerk or the shopkeeper, doing the same thing, day after day, year after year. I' the country they're producing—they're making food and ither things yon city dweller maun ha'.

It's the land, when a's said a's done, that feeds us and sustains us; clothes us and keeps us. It's the countryman, wi' his plough, to whom the city liver owes his food. We in Britain had a sair lesson in the war. Were the Germans no near bein' able to starve us oot and win the war wi' their submarines, And shouldna Britain ha' been able, as she was once, to feed hersel' frae her ain soil?

I'm thinking often, in these days, of hoo the soldiers must be feeling who are back frae France and the years i' the trenches. They've lived great lives, those o' them that ha' lived through it. Do ye think they'll be ready tae gang back to what they were before they dropped their pens or their tape measures and went to war to save the country?

I hae ma doots o' that. There's some wull go back, and gladly—them that had gude posts before the fichtin' came. But I'm wondering about the clerks that sat, stooped on their high stools, and balanced books. Wull a man be content to write doon, o'er and o'er again, "To one pair shoes, eighteen and sixpence, to five yards cotton print——" Oh, ye ken the sort o' thing I mean. Wull he do that, who's been out there, facin' death, clear eyed, hearing the whistle o' shell o'er his head, seeing his friends dee before his een?

I hault nothing against the man who's a clerk or a man in a linen draper's shop. It's usefu', honest work they do. But it's no the sort of work I'm thinking laddies like those who've fought the Hun and won the war for Britain and humanity wull be keen tae be doing in the future.

The toon, as it is, lives frae hand to mooth on the work the country does. Man canna live, after a', on ledgers and accounts. Much o' the work that's done i' the city's just the outgrowth o' what the country produces. And the trouble wi' Britain is that sae many o' her sons ha' flocked tae the cities and the toons that the country's deserted. Villages stand empty. Farms are abandoned—or bought by rich men who make park lands and lawns o' the fields where the potato and the mangel wurzel, the corn and the barley, grew yesteryear.

America and Australia feed us the day. Aye—for the U-boats are driven frae the depths o' the sea. But who's kennin' they'll no come back anither day? Shouldna we be ready, truly ready, in Britain, against the coming of anither day o' wrath? Had we been able to support ourselves, had we nae had to divert sae much o' our energy to beating the U-boats, to keep the food supply frae ower the seas coming freely, we'd ha' saved the lives o' thousands upon thousands o' our braw lads.

Ah, me, I may be wrang! But in ma een the toon's a parasite. I'm no sayin' it's no it's uses. A toon may be a braw and bonnie place enow— for them that like it. But gie me the country.

Do ye ken a man that'll e'er be able tae love his hame sae well if it were a city he was born in, and reared in? In a city folk move sae oft! The hame of a man's faithers may be unknown tae him; belike it's been torn doon, lang before his own bairns are weaned.

In the country hame has a different meaning. Country folk make a real hame o' a hoose. And they grow to know all the country round aboot. It's an event when an auld tree is struck by lightning and withered. When a hoose burns doon it's a sair calamity, and all the neighbors turn to to help. Ah, and there's anither thing! There's neighborliness in the country that's lacking in the city.

And 'tis not because country folk are a better, or a different breed. We're all alike enow at bottom. It's just that there's more room, more time, more o' maist o' the good things that make life hamely and comfortable, i' the country than i' the city. Air, and sunshine, and space to run and lepp and play for the children. Broad fields—not hot, paved streets, full o' rushin' motor cars wi' death under their wheels for the wee bairns.

But I come back, always, in ma thochts, to the way we should be looking to being able to support oorselves in the future. I tak' shame to it that my country should always be dependent upon colonies and foreign lands for food. It is no needfu', and it is no richt. Meat! I'll no sing o' the roast beef o' old England when it comes frae Chicago and the Argentine. And ha' we no fields enow for our cattle to graze in, and canna we raise corn to feed them witha'?

I've a bit farm o' my ain. I didna buy it for masel. It was to hae been for ma son, John. But John lies sleepin' wi' many another braw laddie, oot there in France. And I've ma farm, wi' its thousands o' acres o' fertile fields. I've no the time to be doing so much work upon it masel' as I'd like. But the wife and I ne'er let it wander far frae our thochts. It's a bonnie place. And I'm proving there that farmin' can be made to pay its way in Britain—aye, even in Scotland, the day.

I can wear homespun clothes, made frae wool ta'en frae sheep that ha' grazed and been reared on ma ain land. All the food I ha' need to eat frae ane end o' the year to the other is raised on my farm. The leather for ma shoon can be tanned frae the skins o' the beasties that furnish us wi' beef. The wife and I could shut ourselves up together in our wee hoose and live, so long as micht be needfu', frae our farm —aye, and we could support many a family, beside ourselves.

Others are doing so, tae. I'm not the only farmer who's showing the way back to the land.

I'm telling ye there's anither thing we must aye be thinkin' of. It's in the country, it's on the farms, that men are bred. It's no in the city that braw, healthy lads and lassies grow up wi' rosy cheeks and sturdy arms and legs. They go tae the city frae the land, but their sons and their sons' sons are no sae strong and hearty—when there are bairns. And ye ken, and I ken, that 'tis in the cities that ye'll see man and wife wi' e'er a bairn to bless many and many sicca couple, childless, lonely. Is it the hand o' God? Is it because o' Providence that they're left sae?

Ye know it is not—not often. Ye know they're traitors to the land that raised them, nourished them. They've taken life as a loan, and treated it as a gift they had the richt to throw awa' when they were done wi' the use of it. And it is no sae! The life God gives us he gibe's us to hand on to ithers—to our children, and through them to generations still to come. Oh, aye, I've heard folk like those I'm thinkin' of shout loudly o' their patriotism. But they're traitors to their country—they're traitors as surely as if they'd helped the Hun in the war we've won. If there's another war, as God forbid, they're helping now to lose it who do not do their part in giving Britain new sons and new dochters to carry on the race.



CHAPTER XIV

Tis strange thing enow to become used to it no to hea to count every bawbee before ye spend it. I ken it weel. It was after I made my hit in London that things changed sae greatly for me. I was richt glad. It was something to know, at last, for sure, that I'd been richt in thinking I had a way wi' me enow to expect folk to pay their siller in a theatre or a hall to hear me sing. And then, I began to be fair sure that the wife and the bairn I'd a son to be thinkin' for by then—wad ne'er be wanting.

It's time, I'm thinkin', for all the folk that's got a wife and a bairn or twa, and the means to care for them and a', to be looking wi' open een and open minds at all the talk there is. Shall we be changing everything in this world? Shall a man no ha' the richt tae leave his siller to his bairn? Is it no to be o' use any mair to be lookin' to the future?

I wonder if the folk that feel so ha' taken count enow o' human nature. It's a grand thing, human nature, for a' the dreadfu' things it leads men tae do at times. And it's an awfu' persistent thing, too. There was things Adam did that you'll be doing the day, and me, tae, and thousands like us. It's human tae want to be sure o' whaur the next meal's coming frae. And it's human to be wanting to mak' siccar that the wife and the bairns will be all richt if a man dees before his time.

And then, we're a' used to certain things. We tak' them for granted. We're sae used to them, they're sae muckle a part o' oor lives, that we canna think o' them as lacking. And yet—wadna many o' them be lost if things were changed so greatly and sae suddenly as those who talk like the Bolsheviki wad be havin' them?

I'm a' for the plain man. It's him I can talk wi'; it's him I understand, and who understands me. It's him I see in the audience, wi' his wife, and his bairns, maybe. And it's him I saw when I was in France—Briton, Anzac, Frenchman, American, Canadian, South African, Belgian. Aye, and it was plain men the Hun commanders sent tae dee. We've seen what comes to a land whaur the plain man has nae voice in the affairs o' the community, and no say as to hoo things shall be done.

In Russia—though God knows what it'll be like before ye read what I am writing the noo!—the plain man has nae mair to say than he had in Germany before the ending o' the war. The plain man wants nowt better than tae do his bit o' work, and earn his wages or his salary plainly —or, maybe, to follow his profession, and earn his income. It's no the money a man has in the bank that tells me whether he's a plain man or no. It's the way he talks and thinks and feels.

I've aye felt mysel' a plain man. Oh, I've made siller—I've done that for years. But havin' siller's no made me less a plain man. Nor have any honors that ha' come to me. They may call me Sir Harry Lauder the noo, but I'm aye Harry to my friends, and sae I'll be tae the end o' the chapter. It wad hurt me sair tae think a bit title wad mak' a difference to ma friends.

Aye, it was a strange thing in yon days to be knowing that the dreams the wife and I had had for the bairn could be coming true. It was the first thing we thocht, always, when some new stroke o' fortune came— there'd be that much mair we could do for the bairn. It surprised me to find hoo much they were offering me tae sing. And then there was the time when they first talked tae me o' singin' for the phonograph! I laughed fit to kill masel' that time. But it's no a laughin' matter, as they soon made me see.

It's no just the siller there's to be earned frae the wee discs, though there's a muckle o' that. It's the thocht that folk that never see ye, and never can, can hear your voice. It's a rare thing, and an awesome one, tae me, to be thinkin' that in China and India, and everywhere where men can carry a bit box, my songs may be heard.

I never work harder than when I'm makin' a record for the phonograph. It's a queer feelin'. I mind weel indeed the first time ever I made a record. I was no takin' the gramophone sae seriously as I micht ha' done, perhaps—I'd no thocht, as I ha' since. Then, d'ye ken, I'd not heard phonographs singin' in ma ain voice in America, and Australia, and Honolulu, and dear knows where beside. It was a new idea tae me, and I'd no notion 'twad be a gude thing for both the company and me tae ha' me makin' records. Sae it was wi' a laugh on ma lips that I went into the recording room o' one o' the big companies for the first time.

They had a' ready for me. There was a bit orchestra, waitin', wi' awfu' funny looking instruments—sawed off fiddles, I mind, syne a' the sound must be concentrated to gae through the horn. They put me on a stool, syne I'm such a wee body, and that raised my head up high enow sae that ma voice wad carry straight through the horn to the machine that makes the master record's first impression.

"Ready?" asked the man who was superintending the record.

"Aye," I cried. "When ye please!"

Sae I began, and it wasna sae bad. I sang the first verse o' ma song. And then, as usual, while the orchestra played a sort o' vampin' accompaniment, I sprang a gag, the way I do on the stage. I should ha' gone straight on, then. But I didn't. D'ye ken what? Man, I waited for the applause! Aye, I did so—there in front o' that great yawnin' horn, that was ma only listener, and that cared nae mair for hoo I sang than a cat micht ha' done!

It was a meenit before I realized what a thing I was doing. And then I laughed; I couldna help it. And I laughed sae hard I fell clean off the stool they'd set me on! The record was spoiled, for the players o' the orchestra laughed wi' me, and the operator came runnin' oot tae see what was wrang, and he fell to laughin', too.

"Here's a daft thing I'm doing for ye!" I said to the manager, who stud there, still laughin' at me. "Hoo much am I tae be paid for this, I'll no mak' a fool o' masel', singing into that great tin tube, unless ye mak' the reason worth my while."

He spoke up then—it had been nae mair than an experiment we'd planned, ye'll ken. And I'll tell ye straight that what he tauld me surprised me—I'd had nae idea that there was sae muckle siller to be made frae such foolishness, as I thocht it a' was then. I'll admit that the figures he named fair tuk my breath awa'. I'll no be tellin' ye what they were, but, after he'd tauld them tae me, I'd ha' made a good record for my first one had I had to stay there trying all nicht.

"All richt," I said. "Ca' awa'—I'm the man for ye if it's sae muckle ye're willin' tae pay me."

"Oh, aye—but we'll get it all back, and more beside," said the manager. "Ye're a rare find for us, Harry, my lad. Ye'll mak' more money frae these records we'll mak' togither than ye ha' ever done upon the stage. You're going to be the most popular comic the London halls have ever known, but still, before we're done with you, we'll pay you more in a year than you'll make from all your theatrical engagements."

"Talk sense, man," I tauld him, wi' a laugh. "That can never be."

Weel, ye'll not be asking me whether what he said has come true or nicht. But I don't mind tellin' ye the man was no sica fool as I thocht him!

Eh, noo—here's what I'm thinking. Here am I, Harry Lauder. For ane reason or anither, I can do something that others do not do, whether or no they can—as to that I ken nothing. All I know is that I do something others ha' nae done, and that folk enow ha' been willin' and eager to pay me their gude siller, that they've worked for. Am I a criminal because o' that? Has any man the richt to use me despitefully because I've hit upon a thing tae do that ithers do no do, whether or no they can? Should ithers be fashed wi' me because I've made ma bit siller? I canna see why!

The things that ha' aye moved me ha' moved thousands, aye millions o' other men. There's joy in makin' ithers happy. There's hard work in it, tae, and the laborer is worthy o' his hire.

Then here's anither point. Wad I work as I ha' worked were I allowed but such a salary as some committee of folk that knew nothing o' my work, and what it cost me, and meant tae me in time ta'en frae ma wife and ma bairn at hame? I'll be tellin' ye the answer tae that question, gi'en ye canna answer it for yersel'. It's NO! And it's sae, I'm thinkin', wi' most of you who read the words I've written. Ye'll mind yer own affairs, and sae muckle o' yer neighbors as he's not able to keep ye from findin' oot when ye tak' the time for a bit gossip!