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!