Between You and Me by Sir Harry Lauder

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BETWEEN YOU AND ME

By

SIR HARRY LAUDER

Author of "A Minstrel in France"
NEW YORK

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY
1919

_This book is dedicated to the
Fathers and Mothers
of the Boys who went and those
who prepared to go._

"ONE OF THE BOYS WHO WENT"

Say, Mate, don't you figure it's great
To think, when the war is all over,
And we're thro' with the mud--
And the spilling of blood,
And we're shipped back again to old Dover;
When they've paid us our tin
And we've blown the lot in,
And our very last penny is spent,
We'll still have a thought, if that's all we've got:
Well, I'm one of the boys who went.

Perhaps, later on, when the wild days are gone
And you're settling down for life--
You've a girl in your eye, you'll ask bye and bye
To share up with you as your wife--
Then, when a few years have flown
And you've got "chicks" of your own
And you're happy, and snug, and content,
Man, it will make your heart glad
When they boast of their Dad--
My Dad--He was one of the boys who went.

BETWEEN YOU AND ME

CHAPTER I

It's a bonny world, I'm tellin' ye! It was worth saving, and saved
it's been, if only you and I and the rest of us that's alive and fit
to work and play and do our part will do as we should. I went around
the world in yon days when there was war. I saw all manner of men. I
saw them live, and fight, and dee. And now I'm back from the other
side of the world again. And I'm tellin' ye again that it's a bonny
world I've seen, but no so bonny a world as we maun make it--you and
I. So let us speer a wee, and I'll be trying to tell you what I think,
and what I've seen.

There'll be those going up and doon the land preaching against
everything that is, and talking of all that should be. There'll be
others who'll say that all is well, and that the man that wants to
make a change is no better than Trotzky or a Hun. There'll be those
who'll be wantin' me to let a Soviet tell me what songs to sing to ye,
and what the pattern of my kilts should be. But what have such folk to
say to you and me, plain folk that we are, with our work to do, and
the wife and the bairns to be thinkin' of when it comes time to tak'
our ease and rest? Nothin', I say, and I'll e'en say it again and
again before I'm done.

The day of the plain man has come again. The world belongs to us. We
made it. It was plain men who fought the war--who deed and bled and
suffered in France, and Gallipoli and everywhere where men went about
the business of the war. And it's plain men who have come home to
Britain, and America, to Australia and Canada and all the other places
that sent their sons out to fight for humanity. They maun fight for
humanity still, for that fight is not won,--deed, and it's no more
than made a fair beginning.

Your profiteer is no plain man. Nor is your agitator. They are set up
against you and me, and all the other plain men and women who maun
make a living and tak' care of those that are near and dear to them.
Some of us plain folk have more than others of us, maybe, but there'll
be no envy among us for a' that. We maun stand together, and we shall.
I'm as sure of that as I'm sure that God has charged himself with the
care of this world and all who dwell in it.

I maun talk more about myself than I richt like to do if I'm to make
you see how I'm feeling and thinking aboot all the things that are
loose wi' the world to-day. For, after all, it's himself a man knows
better than anyone else, and if I've ideas about life and the world
it's from the way life's dealt with me that I've learned them. I've no
done so badly for myself and my ain, if I do say it. And that's why,
maybe, I've small patience with them that's busy always saying the
plain man has no chance these days.

Do you ken how I made my start? Are ye thinkin', maybe, that I'd a
faither to send me to college and gie me masters to teach me to sing
my songs, and to play the piano? Man, ye'd be wrong, an' ye thought
so! My faither deed, puir man, when I was but a bairn of eleven--he
was but thirty-twa himself. And my mither was left with me and six
other bairns to care for. 'Twas but little schoolin' I had.

After my faither deed I went to work. The law would not let me gie up
my schoolin' altogether. But three days a week I learned to read and
write and cipher, and the other three I worked in a flax mill in the
wee Forfarshire town of Arboath. Do ye ken what I was paid? Twa
shillin' the week. That's less than fifty cents in American money. And
that was in 1881, thirty eight years ago. I've my bit siller the noo.
I've my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon. I've my war loan stock,
and my Liberty and Victory bonds. But what I've got I've worked for
and I've earned, and you've done the same for what you've got, man,
and so can any other man if he but wull.

I do not believe God ever intended men to get too rich and prosperous.
When they do lots of little things that go to make up the real man
have to be left out, or be dropped out. And men think too much of
things. For a lang time now things have been riding over men, and
mankind has ceased riding over things. But now we plain folk are going
again to make things subservient to life, to human life, to the needs
and interests of the plain man. That is what I want to talk of always,
of late--the need of plain living, plain speaking, plain, useful
thinking.

For me the great discovery of the war was that humanity was the
greatest thing in the world. I had to learn that no man could live for
and by himself alone. I had to learn that I must think all the time of
others. A great grief came to me when my son was killed. But I was not
able to think and act for myself alone. I was minded to tak' a gun in
my hand, and go out to seek to kill twa Huns for my bairn. But it was
his mither who stopped me.

"Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord. I will repay." She reminded me of
those words. And I was ashamed, for that I had been minded to forget.

And when I would have hidden myself away from a' the world, and nursed
my grief, I was reminded, again, that I must not. My boy had died for
humanity. He had not been there in France aboot his own affairs. Was
it for me, his father, to be selfish when he had been unselfish? Had I
done as I planned, had I said I could not carry on because of my ain
grief, I should have brought sorrow and trouble to others, and I
should have failed to do my duty, since there were those who, in a
time of sore trouble and distress, found living easier because I made
them laugh and wink back the tears that were too near to dropping.

Oh, aye, I've had my share of trouble. So when I'm tellin' ye this is
a bonny world do not be thinkin' it's a man who's lived easily always
and whose lines have been cast only in pleasant places who is talking
with ye. I've as little patience as any man with those fat, sleek folk
who fold their hands and roll their een and speak without knowledge of
grief and pain when those who have known both rebel. But I know that
God brings help and I know this much more--that he will not bring it
to the man who has not begun to try to help himself, and never fails
to bring it to the man who has.

Weel, as I've told ye, it was for twa shillin' a week that I first
worked. I was a strappin' lout of a boy then, fit to work harder than
I did, and earn more, and ever and again I'd tell them at some new
mill I was past fourteen, and they'd put me to work at full time. But
I could no hide myself awa' from the inspector when he came around,
and each time he'd send me back to school and to half time.

It was hard work, and hard living in yon days. But it was a grand time
I had. I mind the sea, and the friends I had. And it was there, in
Arboath, when I was no more than a laddie, I first sang before an
audience. A travelling concert company had come to Oddfellows' Hall,
and to help to draw the crowd there was a song competition for
amateurs, with a watch for a prize. I won the prize, and I was as
conceited as you please, with all the other mill boys envying me, and
seein', at last, some use in the way I was always singing. A bit later
there was another contest, and I won that, too, with a six-bladed
knife for a prize. But I did not keep the knife, for, for all my
mither could do to stop me, I'd begun even in those days to be a great
pipe smoker, and I sold the knife for threepence, which bought me an
ounce of thick black--a tobacco I still like, though I can afford a
better now, could I but find it.

It was but twa years we stayed at Arboath. From there we went to
Hamilton, on the west coast, since my uncle told of the plenty work
there was to be found there at the coal mines. I went on at the
pitheads, and, after a week or so, a miner gave me a chance to go
below with him. He was to pay me ten shillings for a week's work as
his helper, and it was proud I was the morn when I went doon into the
blackness for the first time.

But I was no so old, ye'll be mindin', and I won't say I was not
fearsome, too. It's a queer feelin' ye have when ye first go doon into
a pit. The sun's gone, and the light, and it seems like the air's gone
from your lungs with them. I carried a gauze lamp, but the bit flicker
of it was worse than useless--it made it harder for me to see, instead
of easier. The pressure's what ye feel; it's like to be chokin' ye
until you're used to it. And then the black, damp walls, pressin' in,
as if they were great hands aching to be at your throat! Oh, I'm
tellin' ye there's lots of things pleasanter than goin' doon into a
coal pit for the first time.

I mind, since then, I've gone doon far deeper than ever we did at
Hamilton. At Butte, in Montana, in America, I went doon three thousand
feet--more than half a mile, mind ye! There they find copper, and good
copper, at that depth. But they took me doon there in an express
elevator. I had no time to be afeared before we were doon, walkin'
along a broad, dry gallery, as well lighted as Broadway or the Strand,
with electric lights, and great fans to keep the air cool and dry.
It's different, minin' so, to what it was when I was a boy at
Hamilton.

But I'm minded, when I think of Butte, and the great copper mines
there, of the thing I'm chiefly thinking of in writing this book.

I was in Butte during the war--after America had come in. 'Deed, and
it was just before the Huns made their last bid, and thought to break
the British line. Ye mind yon days in the spring of 1918? Anxious
days, sad days. And in the war we all were fighting, copper counted
for nigh as much as men. The miners there in Butte were fighting the
Hun as surely as if they'd been at Cantigny or Chateau-Thierry.

Never had there been such pay in Butte as in yon time. I sang at a
great theatre one of the greatest in all the western country. It was
crowded at every performance. The folk sat on the stage, so deep
packed, so close together, there was scarce room for my walk around.
Ye mind how I fool ye, when I'm singin', by walkin' round and round
the stage after a verse? It's my way of givin' short measure--save
that folk seem to like to see me do it!

Weel, there was that great mining city, where the copper that was so
needed for munitions was being mined. The men were well paid. Yet
there was discontent. Agitators were at work among them, stirring up
trouble, seeking to take their minds off their work and hurt the
production of the copper that was needed to save the lives of men like
those who were digging it out of the ground. They were thinkin',
there, in yon days, that men could live for themselves and by
themselves.

But, thank God, it was only a few who thought so. The great lot of the
men were sound, and they did grand work. And they found their reward,
too--as men always do when they do their work well and think of what
it means.

There were others in Butte, too, who were thinking only of themselves.
Some of them hung one of the agitators, whiles before I was there.
They had not thought, any more than had the foolish men among the
workers, how each of us is dependent upon others, of the debts that
every day brings us, that we owe to all humanity.

Ye'll e'en forgie me if I wander so, sometimes, in this book? Ye'll
ken how it is when you'll be talkin' with a friend? Ye'll begin about
the bit land or the cow one of you means to sell to the other. Ye'll
ha' promised the wife, maybe, when ye slipped oot, that ye'd come
richt back, so soon as ye had finished wi' Sandy. And then, after ye'd
sat ye doon together in a corner of the bar, why one bit word would
lead to another, and ye'd be wanderin' from the subject afore ye knew
it? It's so wi' me. I'm no writin' a book so much as I'm sittin' doon
wi' ye all for a chat, as I micht do gi'en you came into my dressing
room some nicht when I was singin' in your toon.

It's a far cry that last bit o' wandering meant--from Hamilton in my
ain Scotland to Butte in the Rocky Mountains of America! And yet, for
what I'm thinkin' it's no so far a cry. There were men I knew in
Hamilton who'd have found themselves richt at hame among the agitators
in Butte. I'm minded to be tellin' ye a tale of one such lad.

CHAPTER II

The lad I've in mind I'll call Andy McTavish, which'll no be his richt
name, ye'll ken. He could ha' been the best miner in the pit. He could
ha' been the best liked lad in a' those parts. But he was not. Nothin'
was ever good enough for Andy. I'm tellin' ye, had he found a golden
sovereign along the road, whiles he went to his work, he'd have come
to us at the pit moanin' and complainin' because it was not a five
pound note he'd turned up with his toe!

Never was Andy satisfied. Gi'en there were thirty shillin' for him to
draw at the pit head, come Saturday night, he'd growl that for the
hard work he'd done he should ha' had thirty-five. Mind ye, I'm not
sayin' he was wrong, only he was no worse off than the rest, and
better than some, and he was always feeling that it was he who was
badly used, just he, not everyone. He'd curse the gaffer if the vein
of coal he had to work on wasn't to his liking; he knew nothing of the
secret of happiness, which is to take what comes and always remember
that for every bit of bad there's nearly always a bit o' good waitin'
around the corner.

Yet, with it all, there wasn't a keener, brighter lad than Andy in all
Lanarkshire. He had always a good story to crack. He was handy with
his fists; he could play well at football or any other game he tried.
He wasn't educated; had he been, we all used to think, he micht ha'
made a name for himself. I didn't see, in those days, that we were all
wrong. If Andy'd been a good miner, if he'd started by doing well, at
least, as well as he could, the thing he had the chance to do, then
we'd have been right to think that all he needed to be famous and
successful was to have the chance.

But, as it was, Andy was always too busy greetin' over his bad luck.
It was bad luck that he had to work below ground, when he loved the
sunshine. It was bad luck that the wee toon was sae dull for a man of
his spirit. Andy seemed to think that some one should come around and
make him happy and comfortable and rich--not that the only soul alive
to whom he had a right to look for such blessings was himself.

I'll no say we weren't liking Andy all richt. But, ye ken, he was that
sort of man we'd always say, when we were talking of him: "Oh, aye--
there's Andy. A braw laddie--but what he micht be!"

Andy thought he was better than the rest of us. There was that, for
ane thing. He'd no be doing the things the rest of us were glad enough
to do. It was naught to him to walk along the Quarry Road wi' a
lassie, and buss her in a dark spot, maybe. And just because he'd no
een for them, the wee lassies were ready to come, would he but lift
his finger! Is it no always the way? There'd be a dozen decent, hard
working miners who could no get a lassie to look their way, try as
they micht--men who wanted nothing better than to settle doon in a wee
hoose somewhere, and stay at home with the wife, and, a bit later,
with the bairns.

Ye'd never be seein' Andy on a Saturday afternoon along the ropes,
watchin' a football game. Or, if ye did, there'd be a sneer curling
his lips. He was a braw looking lad, was Andy, but that sneer came too
easily.

"Where did they learn the game" he'd say, turning up his nose. "If
they'd gie me a crack I'd show them----"

And, sure enough, if anyone got up a game, Andy'd be the first to take
off his coat. And he was a good player, but no sae good as he thought
himself. 'Twas so wi' all the man did; he was handy enough, but there
were aye others better. But he was all for having a hand in whatever
was going on himself; he'd no the patience to watch others and learn,
maybe, from the way they did.

Andy was a solitary man; he'd no wife nor bairn, and he lived by his
lane, save for a dog and a bantam cock. Them he loved dearly and
nought was too good for them. The dog, I'm thinkin', he had odd uses
for; Andy was no above seekin' a hare now and then that was no his by
rights. And he'd be out before dawn, sometimes, with old Dick, who
could help him with his poaching. 'Twas so he lost Dick at last; a
farmer caught the pair of them in a field of his, and the farmer's dog
took Dick by the throat and killed him.

Andy was fair disconsolate; he was so sad the farmer, even, was sorry
for him, and would no have him arrested, as he micht well have done,
since he'd caught man and dog red handed, as the saying is. He buried
the dog come the next evening, and was no fit to speak to for days.
And then, richt on top of that, he lost his bird; it was killed in a
main wi' another bantam, and Andy lost his champion bantam, and forty
shillin' beside, That settled him. Wi' his two friends gone frae him,
he had no more use for the pit and the countryside. He disappeared,
and the next we heard was that he'd gone for a soldier. Those were the
days, long, long gone, before the great war. We heard Andy's regiment
was ordered to India, and then we heard no more of him.

Gi'en I had stayed a miner, I doubt I'd ever ha' laid een on Andy
again, or heard of him, since he came no more to Hamilton, and I'd,
most like, ha' stayed there, savin' a trip to Glasga noo and then, all
the days of my life. But, as ye ken, I didna stay there. I'll be
tellin', ye ken, hoo it was I came to gang on the stage and become the
Harry you're all so good to when he sings to ye. But the noo I'll just
say that it was years later, and I was singing in London, in four or
five halls the same nicht, when I met Andy one day. I was fair glad to
see him; I'm always glad to see a face from hame. And Andy was looking
fine and braw. He'd good clothes on his back, and he was sleek and
well fed and prosperous looking. We made our way to a hotel; and there
we sat ourselves doon and chatted for three hours.

"Aye, and I'll ha' seen most of the world since I last clapped my een
on you, Harry," he said. "I've heard much about you, and it's glad I
am to be seein' you."

He told me his story. He'd gone for a soldier, richt enough, and been
sent to India. He'd had trouble from the start; he was always
fighting, and while that's a soldier's trade, he's no supposed to
practice it with his fellows, ye ken, but to save his anger for the
enemy. But, for once in a way, Andy's quarrelsome ways did him good.
He was punished once for fighting wi' his corporal, and when his
captain came to look into things he found the trouble started because
the corporal called him, the captain, out of his name. So he made Andy
his servant, and Andy served wi' him till he was killed in South
Africa.

Andy was wounded there, and invalided home. He was discharged, and
said he'd ha' no more of the army--he'd liked that job no better than
any other he'd ever had. His captain, in his will, left Andy twa
hunder pounds sterlin'--more siller than Andy's ever thought to finger
in his life.

"So it was that siller gave you your start, Andy, man?" I said.

He laughed.

"Oh, aye!" he said. "And came near to givin' me my finish, too, Harry.
I put the siller into a business down Portsmouth way--I set up for a
contractor. I was doin' fine, too, but a touring company came along,
and there was a lassie wi' 'em so braw and bonnie I'd like to have
deed for love of her, man, Harry."

It was a sad little story, that, but what you'd expect. Andy, the lady
killer, had ne'er had een for the lassies up home, who'd ha' asked
nothin' better than to ha' him notice them. But this bit lass, whom he
knew was no better than she should be, could ha' her will o' him from
the start. He followed her aboot; he spent his siller on her. His
business went to the dogs, and when she'd milked him dry she laughed
and slipped awa', and he never saw her again. I'm thinkin', at that,
Andy was lucky; had he had more siller she'd maybe ha' married him for
it.

'Twas after that Andy shipped before the mast. He saw Australia and
America, but he was never content to settle doon anywhere, though
there were times when he had more siller than he'd lost at Portsmouth.
Once he was robbed; twa or three times he just threw his siller away.
It was always the same story; no matter how much he was earning it was
never enough; he should always ha' had more.

But Andy learned his lesson at last. He fell in love once more; this
time with a decent, bonnie lass who'd have no dealings wi' him until
he proved to her that she could trust him. He went to work again for a
contractor, and saved his siller. If he thought he should ha' more, he
said nothing, only waited. It was no so long before he saved enough to
buy a partnership wi' his gaffer.

"I'm happy the noo, Harry," he said. "I've found out that what I make
depends on me, not on anyone else. The wife's there waiting for me
when I gang hame at nicht. There's the ane bairn, and another coming,
God bless him."

Weel, Andy'd learned nothing he hadn't been told a million times by
his parents and his friends. But he was one of those who maun learn
for themselves to mak siccar. Can ye no see how like he was to some of
them that's makin' a great name for themselves the noo, goin' up and
doon the land tellin' us what we should do? I'm no the one to say that
it should be every man for himself; far from it. We've all to think of
others beside ourselves. But when it comes to winning or losing in
this battle of life we've all got to learn the same lesson that cost
poor Andy so dear. We maun stand on our ain feet. Neither God nor man
can help us until we've begun to help ourselves.

CHAPTER III

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.

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