In the beginnin' I was no a miner, ye ken, in the pit at Hamilton. I
went doon first as a miner's helper, but that was for but the one
week. And at its end my gaffer just went away. He was to pay me ten
shillings, but never a three-penny bit of all that siller did I see!
It was cruel hard, and it hurt me sore, to think I'd worked sae long
and so hard and got nothing for it, but there was no use greetin'. And
on Monday I went doon into the pit again, but this time as a trapper.
In a mine, ye ken, there are great air-tight gates. Without them
there'd be more fires and explosions than there are. And by each one
there's a trapper, who's to open and close them as the pony drivers
with their lurches that carry the mined coal to the hoists go in and
out. Easy work, ye'll say. Aye--if a trapper did only what he was paid
for doing. He's not supposed to do ought else than open and close
gates, and his orders are that he must never leave them. But trappers
are boys, as a rule, and the pony drivers strong men, and they manage
to make the trappers do a deal of their work as well as their ain.
They can manage well enough, for they're no slow to gie a kick or a
cuff if the trapper bids them attend to their own affairs and leave
him be.
I learned that soon enough. And many was the blow I got; many the time
a driver warmed me with his belt, when I was warm enough already. But,
for a' that, we had good times in the pit. I got to know the men I
worked with, and to like them fine. You do that at work, and
especially underground, I'm thinking. There, you ken, there's always
some danger, and men who may dee together any day are like to be
friendly while they have the chance.
I've known worse days, tak' them all in all, than those in Eddlewood
Colliery. We'd a bit cabin at the top of the brae, and there we'd keep
our oil for our lamps, and leave our good coats. We'd carry wi' us,
too, our piece--bread and cheese, and cold tea, that served for the
meal we ate at midday.
'Twas in the pit, I'm thinkin', I made my real start. For 'twas there
I first began to tak' heed of men and see how various they were. Ever
since then, in the days when I began to sing, and when my friends in
the audiences decided that I should spend my life so instead of
working mair with my twa hands, it's been what I knew of men and women
that's been of service to me. When I come upon the idea for a new song
'tis less often a bit of verse or a comic idea I think of first--mair
like it's some odd bit of humanity, some man a wee bit different from
others. He'll be a bit saft, perhaps, or mean, or generous--I'm not
carin', so long as he's but different.
And there, in the pit, men showed themselves to one another, and my
een and my ears were aye open in those days. I'd try to be imitating
this queer character or that, sometimes, but I'd do it only for my ain
pleasure. I was no thinkin', in yon days, of ever singing on the
stage. How should I ha' done so? I was but Harry Lauder, strugglin'
hard to mak siller enough to help at home.
But, whiles I was at my work, I'd sing a bit song now and again, when
I thought no one was by to hear. Sometimes I was wrong, and there's be
one nearer than I thought. And so it got aboot in the pit that I could
sing a bit. I had a good voice enough, though I knew nothing, then, of
how to sing--I've learned much of music since I went on the stage.
Then, though, I was just a boy, singing because he liked to hear
himself sing. I knew few and I'd never seen a bit o' printed music. As
for reading notes on paper I scarcely knew such could be done.
The miners liked to have me sing. It was in the cabin in the brae,
where we'd gather to fill our lamps and eat our bread and cheese, that
they asked me, as a rule. We were great ones for being entertained.
And we never lacked entertainers. If a man could do card tricks, or
dance a bit, he was sure to be popular. One man was a fairish piper,
and sometimes the skirl of some old Hieland melody would sound weird
enough, as I made my way to the cabin through a grey mist.
I was called upon oftener than anyone else, I think.
"Gie's a bit sang, Harry," they'd say. Maybe ye'll not be believing
me, but I was timid at the first of it, and slow to do as they asked.
But later I got over that, and those first audiences of mine did much
for me. They taught me not to be afraid, so long as I was doing my
best, and they taught me, too, to study my hearers and learn to decide
what folk liked, and why they liked it.
I had no songs of my own then, ye'll understand; I just sang such bits
as I'd picked up of the popular songs of the day, that the famous
"comics" of the music halls were singing--or that they'd been singing
a year before--aye, that'll be nearer the truth of it!
I had one rival I didn't like, though, as I look back the noo, I can
see I was'na too kind to feel as I did aboot puir Jock. Jock coul no
stand it to have anyone else applauded, or to see them getting
attention he craved for himself. He could no sing, but he was a great
story teller. Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up
tales, 'twould have been all richt enough. But, no--Jock must pretend
he'd been everywhere he told about, and that he'd been an actor in
every yarn he spun. He was a great boaster, too--he'd tell us, without
a blush, of the most desperate things he'd done, and of how brave he'd
been. He was the bravest man alive, to hear him tell it.
They were askin' me to sing one day, and I was ready to oblige, when
Jock started.
"Bide a wee, Harry, man," he said, "while I'll be tellin' ye of a
thing that happened to me on the veldt in America once."
"The veldt's in South Africa, Jock," someone said, slyly.
"No, no--it's the Rocky Mountains you're meaning. They're in South
Africa--I climbed three of them there in a day, once. Weel, I was
going to tell ye of this time when we were hunting gold----"
And he went on, to spin a yarn that would have made Ananias himself
blush. When he was done it was time to gang back to work, and my song
not sung! I'd a new chorus I was wanting them to hear, too, and I was
angry with puir Jock--more shame to me! And so I resolved to see if he
was as brave as he was always saying. I'm ashamed of this, mind ye--
I'm admitting it.
So, next day, at piece time, I didn't join the crowd that went to the
auld cabin. Instead I did without my bread and cheese and my cold tea--
and, man, I'm tellin' ye it means a lot for Harry to forego his
victuals!--and went quickly along to the face where Jock was working.
It happened that he was at work there alone that day, so I was able to
make my plans against his coming back, and be sure it wouldna be
spoiled. I had a mask and an old white sheet. On the mask I'd painted
eyes with phosphorus, and I put it on, and draped the sheet over my
shoulders. When Jock came along I rose up, slowly, and made some very
dreadful noises, that micht well ha' frightened a man as brave even as
Jock was always saying to us he was!
Ye should ha' seen him run along that stoop! He didna wait a second;
he never touched me, or tried to. He cried out once, nearly dropped
his lamp, and then turned tail and went as if the dell were after him.
I'd told some of the miners what I meant to do, so they were waiting
for him, and when he came along they saw how frightened he was. They
had to support him; he was that near to collapse. As for me, there was
so much excitement I had no trouble in getting to the stable unseen,
and then back to my ain gate, where I belonged.
Jock would no go back to work that day.
"I'll no work in a haunted seam!" he declared, vehemently. "It was a
ghost nine feet high, and strong like a giant! If I'd no been so brave
and kept my head I'd be lying there dead the noo. I surprised him, ye
ken, by putting up a fight--likes he'd never known mortal man to do so
much before! Next time, he'd not be surprised, and brave though a man
may be, he canna ficht with one so much bigger and stronger than
himself."
He made a great tale of it before the day was done. As we waited at
the foot of the shaft to be run up in the bucket he was still talking.
He was boasting again, as I'd known he would. And that was the chance
I'd been waiting for a' the time.
"Man, Jock," I said, "ye should ha' had that pistol wi' ye--the one
with which ye killed all the outlaws on the American veldt. Then ye
could ha' shot him."
"That shows how much you know, young Harry Lauder!" he said,
scornfully. "Would a pistol bullet hurt a ghost? Talk of what ye ha'
some knowledge of----"
"Aye," I said. "That's good advice, Jock. I suppose I'm not knowing so
much as you do about ghosts. But tell me, man--would a ghost be making
a noise like this?"
And I made the self-same noise I'd made before, when I was playing the
ghost for Jock's benefit. He turned purple; he was clever enough to
see the joke I'd played on him at once. And the other miners--they
were all in the secret began to roar with laughter. They weren't sorry
to see puir Jock shown up for the liar and boaster he was. But I was a
little sorry, when I saw how hard he took it, and how angry he was.
He aimed a blow at me that would have made me the sorry one if it had
landed fair, but I put up my jukes and warded it off, and he was
ashamed, after than, wi' the others laughing at him so, to try again
to punish me. He was very sensitive, and he never came back to the
Eddlewood Colliery; the very next day he found a job in another pit.
He was a good miner, was Jock, so that was no matter to him. But I've
often wondered if I really taught him a lesson, or if he always kept
on telling his twisters in his new place!
I stayed on, though, after Jock had gone, and after a time I drove a
pony instead of tending a gate. That was better work, and meant a few
shillings a week more in wages, too, which counted heavily just then.
I handled a number of bonnie wee Shetland ponies in the three years I
drove the hutches to and from the pitshaft. One likable little fellow
was a real pet. He followed me all about. It was great to see him play
one trick I taught him. He would trot to the little cabin and forage
among all the pockets till he found one where a man had left a bit of
bread and cheese at piece time. He'd eat that, and then he would go
after a flask of cold tea. He'd fasten it between his forefeet and
pull the cork with his teeth--and then he'd tip the flask up between
his teeth and drink his tea like a Christian. Aye, Captain was a
droll, clever yin. And once, when I beat him for stopping short before
a drift, he was saving my life. There was a crash just after I hit
him, and the whole drift caved in. Captain knew it before I did. If he
had gone on, as I wanted him to do, we would both ha' been killed.