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 la.s.sie 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, la.s.sie," 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, la.s.sie?" 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 la.s.sie--some scoundrel had deceived her and betrayed her. He"d won her confidence by pretending to be my cousin--why, G.o.d knows, nor why that should have made the la.s.sie 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 la.s.sie 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 la.s.sie; 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 G.o.dly 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 la.s.sie 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 G.o.d 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.