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 c.o.c.ked 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 sc.r.a.ping, 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.