It was a lee! I ne"er hurt the feelings o" a man o" German blood that was a decent body--and there were many and many o" them. There in America the many had to suffer for the sins of the few. I"ve had Germans come tae me wi" tears in their een and thank me for the way I talked and the way I was helping to win the war. They were the true Germans, the ones who"d left their native land because they cauldna endure the Hun any more than could the rest of the world when it came to know him.
But I couldna ha gone easy, had I known that I maun lose the support of thousands of folk for what I said. The truth as I"d seen it and knew it I had to tell. I"ve a muckle to say on that score.
CHAPTER XV
It was as great a surprise tae me as it could ha" been to anyone else when I discovered that I could move men and women by speakin" tae them. In the beginning, in Britain, I made speeches to help the recruiting. My boy John had gone frae the first, and through him I knew much about the army life, and the way of it in those days. Sae I began to mak" a bit speech, sometimes, after the show.
And then I organized my recruiting band--Hieland laddies, wha went up and doon the land, skirling the pipes and beating the drum. The laddies wad flock to hear them, and when they were brocht together so there was easy work for the sergeants who were wi" the band. There"s something about the skirling of the pipes that fires a man"s blood and sets his feet and his fingers and a" his body to tingling.
Whiles I"d be wi" the band masel"; whiles I"d be off elsewhere. But it got sae that it seemed I was being of use to the country, e"en though they"d no let me tak" a gun and ficht masel". When I was in America first, after the war began, America was still neutral. I was ne"er one o" those who blamed America and President Wilson for that. It was no ma business to do sae. He was set in authority in that country, and the responsibility and the authority were his. They were foolish Britons, and they risked much, who talked against the President of the United States in yon days.
I keened a" the time that America wad tak" her stand on the side o"
the richt when the time came. And when it came at last I was glad o"
the chance to help, as I was allowed tae do. I didna speak sae muckle in favor of recruiting; it was no sae needfu" in America as it had been in Britain, for in America there was conscription frae the first.
In America they were wise in Washington at the verra beginning. They knew the history of the war in Britain, and they were resolved to profit by oor mistakes.
But what was needed, and sair needed, in America, was to mak" people who were sae far awa" frae the spectacle o" war as the Hun waged it understand what it meant. I"d been in France when I came back to America in the autumn o" 1917. My boy was in France still; I"d knelt beside his grave, hard by the Bapaume road. I"d seen the wilderness of that country in Picardy and Flanders. We"d pushed the Hun back frae a"
that country I"d visited--I"d seen Vimy Ridge, and Peronne, and a" the other places.
I told what I"d seen. I told the way the Hun worked. And I spoke for the Liberty Loans and the other drives they were making to raise money in America--the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army, the Knights of Columbus, and a score of others. I knew what it was like, over yonder in France, and I could tell American faithers and mithers what their boys maun see and do when the great transports took them oversea.
It was for me, to whom folk would listen, tae tell the truth as I"d seen it. It was no propaganda I was engaged in--there was nae need o"
propaganda. The truth was enow. Whiles, I"ll be telling you, I found trouble. There were places where folk of German blood forgot they"d come to America to be free of kaisers and junkers. They stood by their old country, foul as her deeds were. They threatened me, more than once; they were angry enow at me to ha" done me a mischief had they dared. But they dared not, and never a voice was raised against me publicly--in a theatre or a hall where I spoke, I mean.
I went clear across America and back in that long tour. When I came back it was just as the Germans began their last drive. Ye"ll be minding hoo black things looked for a while, when they broke our British line, or bent it back, rather, where the Fifth Army kept the watch? Mind you, I"d been over all that country our armies had reclaimed frae the Hun in the long Battle o" the Somme. My boy John, the wean I"d seen grow frae a nursling in his mither"s arms, had focht in that battle.
He"d been wounded, and come hame tae his mither to be nursed back to health. She"d done that, and she"d blessed him, and kissed him gude bye, and he"d gone oot there again. And--that time, he stayed. There"s a few words I can see, written on a bit o" yellow paper, each time I close ma een.
"Captain John Lauder, killed, December 28. Official."
Aye, I"d gone all ower that land in which he"d focht. I"d seen the spot where he was killed. I"d lain doon beside his grave. And then, in the spring of 1918, as I travelled back toward New York, across America, the Hun swept doon again through Peronne and Bapaume. He took back a" that land British blood had been spilled like watter to regain frae him.
The pity of it! Sae I was thinking each day as I read the bulletins!
Had America come in tae late? I"d read the words of Sir Douglas Haig, that braw and canny Scot wha held the British line in France, when he said Britain was fichtin" wi" her back tae the wall. Was Ypres to be lost, after four years? Was the Channel to be laid open to the Hun? It lookit sae, for a time.
I was like a man possessed by a de"il, I"m thinking, in you days. I couldna think of ought but the way the laddies were suffering in France. And it filled me wi" rage tae see those who couldna or wouldna understand. They"d sit there when I begged them to buy Liberty Bonds, and they"d be sae slow to see what I was driving at. I lost ma temper, sometimes. Whiles I"d say things to an audience that were no so, that were unfair. If I was unjust to any in those days, I"m sorry. But they maun understand that ma heart was in France, wi" them that was deein"
and suffering new tortures every day. I"d seen what I was talking of.
Whiles, in America, I was near to bein" ashamed, for the way I was always seekin" to gain the siller o" them that came to hear me sing. I was raising money for ma fund for the Scotch wounded. I"d a bit poem I"d written that was printed on a card to be sold, and there were some wee stamps. Mrs. Lauder helped me. Each day, as an audience went oot, she"d be in the lobby, and we raised a grand sum before we were done.
And whiles, too, when I spoke on the stage, money would come raining doon, so that it looked like a green snowstorm.
I maun no be held to account too strictly, I"m thinking, for the hard things I sometimes said on that tour. I tak" back nothing that was deserved; there were toons, and fine they"ll ken themselves wi"oot ma naming them, that ought to be ashamed of themselves. There was the book I wrote. Every nicht I"d auction off a copy to the highest bidder--the money tae gae tae the puir wounded laddies in Scotland. A copy went for five thousand dollars ane nicht in New York!
That was a grand occasion, I"m tellin" ye. It was in the Metropolitan Opera Hoose, that great theatre where Caruso and Melba and a" the stars of the opera ha" sung sae often. Aye, Harry Lauder had sung there tae--sung there that nicht! The hoose was fu", and I made my talk.
And then I held up my book, "A Minstrel in France." I asked that they should buy a copy. The bidding started low. But up and up it ran. And when I knocked it doon at last it was for twenty-five hundred dollars --five hundred poonds! But that wasna a". I was weel content. But the gentleman that bocht it lookit at it, and then sent it back, and tauld me to auction it all ower again. I did, and this time, again, it went for twenty-five hundred dollars. So there was five thousand dollars--a thousand poonds--for ma wounded laddies at hame in Scotland.
Noo, think o" the contrast. There"s a toon--I"ll no be writing doon its name--where they wadna bid but twelve dollars--aboot twa poond ten shillings--for the book! Could ye blame me for being vexed? Maybe I said more than I should, but I dinna think so. I"m thinking still those folk were mean. But I was interested enough to look to see what that toon had done, later, and I found oot that its patriotism must ha" been awakened soon after, for it bocht its share and more o"
bonds, and it gave its siller freely to all the bodies that needed money for war work. They were sair angry at old Harry Lauder that nicht he tauld them what he thocht of their generosity, but it maybe he did them gude, for a" that!
I"d be a dead man the noo, e"en had I as many lives as a dozen nine lived cats, had a" the threats that were made against me in America been carried oot. They"d tell me, in one toon after anither, that it wadna be safe tae mak" ma talk against the Hun. But I was never frightened. You know the old saying that threatened men live longest, and I"m a believer in that. And, as it was, the towns where there were most people of German blood were most cordial to me.
I ken fine how it was that that was so. All Germans are not Huns. And in America the decent Germans, the ones who were as filled with horror when the Lusitania was sunk as were any other decent bodies, were anxious to do all they could to show that they stood with the land of their adoption.
I visited many an American army camp. I"ve sung for the American soldiers, as well as the British, in America, and in France as well.
And I"ve never seen an American regiment yet that did not have on its muster rolls many and many a German name. They did well, those American laddies wi" the German names. They were heroes like the rest.
It"s a strange thing, the way it fell to ma lot tae speak sae much as I did during the war. I canna quite believe yet that I was as usefu"
as my friends ha" told me I was. Yet they"ve come near to making me believe it. They"ve clapped a Sir before my name to prove they think so, and I"ve had the thanks of generals and ministers and state. It"s a comfort to me to think it"s so. It was a sair grief tae me that when my boy was dead I couldna tak" his place. But they a" told me I"d be wasted i" the trenches.
A man must do his duty as he"s made to see it. And that"s what I tried to do in the war. If I stepped on any man"s toes that didna deserve it, I"m sorry. I"d no be unfair to any man. But I think that when I said hard things to the folk of a toon they were well served, as a rule, and I know that it"s so that often and often folk turned to doing the things I"d blamed them for not doing even while they were most bitter against me, and most eager to see me ridden oot o" toon upon a rail, wi" a coat o" tar and feathers to cover me! Sae I"m not minding much what they said, as long as what they did was a" richt.
All"s well that ends well, as Wull Shakespeare said. And the war"s well ended. It"s time to forget our ain quarrels the noo as to the way o" winning; we need dispute nae mair as to that. But there"s ane thing we maun not forget, I"m thinking. The war taught us many and many a thing, but none that was worth mair to us than this. It taught us that we were invincible sae lang as we stood together, we folk who speak the common English tongue.
Noo, there"s something we knew before, did we no? Yet we didna act upon our knowledge. Shall we ha" to have anither lesson like the one that"s past and done wi", sometime in the future? Not in your lifetime or mine, I mean, but any time at a"? Would it no be a sair pity if that were so? Would it no mak" G.o.d feel that we were a stupid lot, not worth the saving?
None can hurt us if we but stand together, Britons and Americans.
We"ve a common blood and a common speech. We"ve our differences, true enough. We do not do a" things i" the same way. But what matter"s that, between friends? We"ve learned we can be the best o" friends.
Our laddies learned that i" France, when Englishman and Scot, Yankee and Anzac, Canadian and Irishman and Welshman, broke the Hindenburg line together.
We"ve the future o" the world, that those laddies saved, to think o"
the noo. And we maun think of it together, and come to the problems that are still left together, if we would solve them in the richt way, and wi"oot havin" to spill more blood to do so.
When men ha" fought together and deed together against a common foe they should be able to talk together aboot anything that comes up between them, and mak" common cause against any foe that threatens either of them. And I"m thinking that no foe will ever threaten any of the nations that fought against the Hun that does no threaten them a"!
CHAPTER XVI
It"s a turning point in the life of any artist like myself to mak" a London success. Up tae that time in his career neithing is quite certain. The provinces may turn on him; it"s no likely, but they may.
It"s true there"s many a fine artist has ne"er been able to mak" a London audience care for him, and he"s likely to stay in the provinces a" his life long, and be sure, always, o" his greetin" frae those who"ve known him a lang time. But wi" London having stamped success upon ye ye can be sure o" many things. After that there"s still other worlds to conquer, but they"re no sae hard tae reach.
For me that first nicht at Gatti"s old hall in the Westminster Bridge road seems like a magic memory, even the noo. I"m sorry the wife was no wi" me; had I been able to be sure o" getting the show Tom Tinsley gied me I"d ha" had her doon. As it was it wad ha" seemed like tempting Providence, and I"ve never been any hand tae do that. I"m no superst.i.tious, exactly--certainly I"m no sae for a Scot. But I dinna believe it"s a wise thing tae gave oot o" the way and look for trouble. I"ll no walk under a ladder if I can help it, I"ll tell ye, if ye ask me why, that I avoid a ladder because I"ve heard o" painters dropping paint and costin" them that was beneath the price o" the cleaning of their claes, and ye can believe that or no, as ye"ve a mind!
Ye"ve heard o" men who went to bed themselves at nicht and woke up famous. Weel, it was no like that, precisely, wi" me after the nicht at Gatti"s. I was no famous i" the morn. The papers had nowt to say o"
me; they"d not known Mr. Harry Lauder was to mak" his first appearance in the metropolis. And, e"en had they known, I"m no thinking they"d ha" sent anyone to write me up. That was tae come to me later on. Aye, I"ve had my share of write-ups in the press; I"d had them then, in the provincial papers. But London was anither matter.
Still, there were those who knew that a new Scotch comic had made an audience like him. It"s a strange thing how word o" a new turn flies aboot amang those regulars of a hall"s audiences. The second nicht they were waiting for my turn, and I got a rare hand when I stepped oot upon the stage--the nicht before there"d been dead silence i" the hoose. Aye, the second nicht was worse than the first. The first nicht success micht ha" been an accident; the second aye tells the tale.
It"s so wi" a play. I"ve friends who write plays, and they say the same thing--they aye wait till the second nicht before they cheer, no matter how grand a success they think they ha" the first nicht, and hoo many times they ha" to step oot before the curtain and bow, and how many times they"re called upon for a speech.
So when the second nicht they made me gie e"en more encores than the first I began to be fair sure. And the word had spread, I learned, to the managers o" other halls; twa-three of them were aboot to hear me.
My agent had seen to that; he was glad enough to promise me all the London engagements I wanted noo that I"d broken the ice for masel"! I didna blame him for havin" been dootfu". He knew his business, and it would ha" been strange had he ta"en me at my word when I told him I could succeed where others had failed that had come wi" reputations better than my own.
I think I"d never quite believed, before, the tales I"d heard of the great sums the famous London artists got. It took the figures I saw on the contracts I was soon being asked to sign for appearances at the Pavilion and the Tivoli and all the other famous music halls to make me realize that all I"d heard was true. They promised me more for second appearances, and my agent advised me against making any long term engagements then.