Between You and Me Part 14

There's a sicht ye can see as oft in the city as in the country. It's that o' a lover and his la.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 la.s.sie's een. I saw the way he looked at her. It was for but a moment, as I pa.s.sed. 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 gra.s.s.

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 G.o.d 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' sh.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce 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 la.s.sies grow up wi' rosy cheeks and st.u.r.dy 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' G.o.d? 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 t.i.tle 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.