Between You and Me by Sir Harry Lauder

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City folk do long, I'm sure o' it, for the glen and the beauty o' the
countryside. Why else do they look as they do, and act as they do,
when I sing to them o' the same? And I've the memory of what many a
one has said to me, wi' tears in his een.

"Oh, Harry--ye brocht the auld hame to ma mind when ye sang o' roaming
in the gloaming! And--the wee hoose amang the heather!"

'Tis the hamely songs I gie 'em o' the country they aye love best, I
find. But why will they be content wi' what I bring them o' the glen
and the dell? Why will they no go back or oot, if they're city born,
and see for themselves? It's business holds some; others ha' other
reasons. But, dear, dear, 'tis no but a hint o' the glamour and the
freshness and the beauty o' the country that ma songs can carry to
them. No but a hint! Ye canna bottle the light o' the moon on Afton
Water; ye canna bring the air o' a Hieland moor to London in a box.

Will ye no seek to be oot sae much o' the year as ye can? It may be
true that your affairs maun keep you living in the city. But whiles ye
can get oot in the free air. Ye can lee doon upon yer back on the turf
and look up at the blue sky and the bricht sun, and hear the skylark
singing high above ye, or the call o' the auld hoot owl at nicht.

I think it's the evenings, when I'm held a prisoner in the city, mak'
me lang maist for the country. There's a joy to a country evening.
Whiles it's winter. But within it's snug. There's the wind howling
doon the chimney, but there's the fire blazing upon the hearth, and
the kettle singing it's bit sang on the hob. And all the family will
be in frae work, tired but happy. Some one wull start a sang to rival
the kettle; we've a poet in Scotland. 'Twas the way ma mither wad sing
the sangs o' Bobby Burns made me sure, when I was a bit laddie, that I
must, if God was gude tae me, do what I could to carry on the work o'
that great poet.

There's plenty o' folk who like the country for rest and recreation.
But they canna understand hoo it comes that folk are willing to stay
there all their days and do the "dull country work." Aye, but it's no
sae dull, that work in the country. There's less monotony in it, in ma
een, than in the life o' the clerk or the shopkeeper, doing the same
thing, day after day, year after year. I' the country they're
producing--they're making food and ither things yon city dweller maun
ha'.

It's the land, when a's said a's done, that feeds us and sustains us;
clothes us and keeps us. It's the countryman, wi' his plough, to whom
the city liver owes his food. We in Britain had a sair lesson in the
war. Were the Germans no near bein' able to starve us oot and win the
war wi' their submarines, And shouldna Britain ha' been able, as she
was once, to feed hersel' frae her ain soil?

I'm thinking often, in these days, of hoo the soldiers must be feeling
who are back frae France and the years i' the trenches. They've lived
great lives, those o' them that ha' lived through it. Do ye think
they'll be ready tae gang back to what they were before they dropped
their pens or their tape measures and went to war to save the country?

I hae ma doots o' that. There's some wull go back, and gladly--them
that had gude posts before the fichtin' came. But I'm wondering about
the clerks that sat, stooped on their high stools, and balanced books.
Wull a man be content to write doon, o'er and o'er again, "To one pair
shoes, eighteen and sixpence, to five yards cotton print----" Oh, ye
ken the sort o' thing I mean. Wull he do that, who's been out there,
facin' death, clear eyed, hearing the whistle o' shell o'er his head,
seeing his friends dee before his een?

I hault nothing against the man who's a clerk or a man in a linen
draper's shop. It's usefu', honest work they do. But it's no the sort
of work I'm thinking laddies like those who've fought the Hun and won
the war for Britain and humanity wull be keen tae be doing in the
future.

The toon, as it is, lives frae hand to mooth on the work the country
does. Man canna live, after a', on ledgers and accounts. Much o' the
work that's done i' the city's just the outgrowth o' what the country
produces. And the trouble wi' Britain is that sae many o' her sons ha'
flocked tae the cities and the toons that the country's deserted.
Villages stand empty. Farms are abandoned--or bought by rich men who
make park lands and lawns o' the fields where the potato and the
mangel wurzel, the corn and the barley, grew yesteryear.

America and Australia feed us the day. Aye--for the U-boats are driven
frae the depths o' the sea. But who's kennin' they'll no come back
anither day? Shouldna we be ready, truly ready, in Britain, against
the coming of anither day o' wrath? Had we been able to support
ourselves, had we nae had to divert sae much o' our energy to beating
the U-boats, to keep the food supply frae ower the seas coming freely,
we'd ha' saved the lives o' thousands upon thousands o' our braw lads.

Ah, me, I may be wrang! But in ma een the toon's a parasite. I'm no
sayin' it's no it's uses. A toon may be a braw and bonnie place enow--
for them that like it. But gie me the country.

Do ye ken a man that'll e'er be able tae love his hame sae well if it
were a city he was born in, and reared in? In a city folk move sae
oft! The hame of a man's faithers may be unknown tae him; belike it's
been torn doon, lang before his own bairns are weaned.

In the country hame has a different meaning. Country folk make a real
hame o' a hoose. And they grow to know all the country round aboot.
It's an event when an auld tree is struck by lightning and withered.
When a hoose burns doon it's a sair calamity, and all the neighbors
turn to to help. Ah, and there's anither thing! There's neighborliness
in the country that's lacking in the city.

And 'tis not because country folk are a better, or a different breed.
We're all alike enow at bottom. It's just that there's more room, more
time, more o' maist o' the good things that make life hamely and
comfortable, i' the country than i' the city. Air, and sunshine, and
space to run and lepp and play for the children. Broad fields--not
hot, paved streets, full o' rushin' motor cars wi' death under their
wheels for the wee bairns.

But I come back, always, in ma thochts, to the way we should be
looking to being able to support oorselves in the future. I tak' shame
to it that my country should always be dependent upon colonies and
foreign lands for food. It is no needfu', and it is no richt. Meat!
I'll no sing o' the roast beef o' old England when it comes frae
Chicago and the Argentine. And ha' we no fields enow for our cattle to
graze in, and canna we raise corn to feed them witha'?

I've a bit farm o' my ain. I didna buy it for masel. It was to hae
been for ma son, John. But John lies sleepin' wi' many another braw
laddie, oot there in France. And I've ma farm, wi' its thousands o'
acres o' fertile fields. I've no the time to be doing so much work
upon it masel' as I'd like. But the wife and I ne'er let it wander far
frae our thochts. It's a bonnie place. And I'm proving there that
farmin' can be made to pay its way in Britain--aye, even in Scotland,
the day.

I can wear homespun clothes, made frae wool ta'en frae sheep that ha'
grazed and been reared on ma ain land. All the food I ha' need to eat
frae ane end o' the year to the other is raised on my farm. The
leather for ma shoon can be tanned frae the skins o' the beasties that
furnish us wi' beef. The wife and I could shut ourselves up together
in our wee hoose and live, so long as micht be needfu', frae our farm
--aye, and we could support many a family, beside ourselves.

Others are doing so, tae. I'm not the only farmer who's showing the
way back to the land.

I'm telling ye there's anither thing we must aye be thinkin' of. It's
in the country, it's on the farms, that men are bred. It's no in the
city that braw, healthy lads and lassies grow up wi' rosy cheeks and
sturdy arms and legs. They go tae the city frae the land, but their
sons and their sons' sons are no sae strong and hearty--when there are
bairns. And ye ken, and I ken, that 'tis in the cities that ye'll see
man and wife wi' e'er a bairn to bless many and many sicca couple,
childless, lonely. Is it the hand o' God? Is it because o' Providence
that they're left sae?

Ye know it is not--not often. Ye know they're traitors to the land
that raised them, nourished them. They've taken life as a loan, and
treated it as a gift they had the richt to throw awa' when they were
done wi' the use of it. And it is no sae! The life God gives us he
gibe's us to hand on to ithers--to our children, and through them to
generations still to come. Oh, aye, I've heard folk like those I'm
thinkin' of shout loudly o' their patriotism. But they're traitors to
their country--they're traitors as surely as if they'd helped the Hun
in the war we've won. If there's another war, as God forbid, they're
helping now to lose it who do not do their part in giving Britain new
sons and new dochters to carry on the race.

CHAPTER XIV

Tis strange thing enow to become used to it no to hea to count every
bawbee before ye spend it. I ken it weel. It was after I made my hit
in London that things changed sae greatly for me. I was richt glad. It
was something to know, at last, for sure, that I'd been richt in
thinking I had a way wi' me enow to expect folk to pay their siller in
a theatre or a hall to hear me sing. And then, I began to be fair sure
that the wife and the bairn I'd a son to be thinkin' for by then--wad
ne'er be wanting.

It's time, I'm thinkin', for all the folk that's got a wife and a
bairn or twa, and the means to care for them and a', to be looking wi'
open een and open minds at all the talk there is. Shall we be changing
everything in this world? Shall a man no ha' the richt tae leave his
siller to his bairn? Is it no to be o' use any mair to be lookin' to
the future?

I wonder if the folk that feel so ha' taken count enow o' human
nature. It's a grand thing, human nature, for a' the dreadfu' things
it leads men tae do at times. And it's an awfu' persistent thing, too.
There was things Adam did that you'll be doing the day, and me, tae,
and thousands like us. It's human tae want to be sure o' whaur the
next meal's coming frae. And it's human to be wanting to mak' siccar
that the wife and the bairns will be all richt if a man dees before
his time.

And then, we're a' used to certain things. We tak' them for granted.
We're sae used to them, they're sae muckle a part o' oor lives, that
we canna think o' them as lacking. And yet--wadna many o' them be lost
if things were changed so greatly and sae suddenly as those who talk
like the Bolsheviki wad be havin' them?

I'm a' for the plain man. It's him I can talk wi'; it's him I
understand, and who understands me. It's him I see in the audience,
wi' his wife, and his bairns, maybe. And it's him I saw when I was in
France--Briton, Anzac, Frenchman, American, Canadian, South African,
Belgian. Aye, and it was plain men the Hun commanders sent tae dee.
We've seen what comes to a land whaur the plain man has nae voice in
the affairs o' the community, and no say as to hoo things shall be
done.

In Russia--though God knows what it'll be like before ye read what I
am writing the noo!--the plain man has nae mair to say than he had in
Germany before the ending o' the war. The plain man wants nowt better
than tae do his bit o' work, and earn his wages or his salary plainly
--or, maybe, to follow his profession, and earn his income. It's no the
money a man has in the bank that tells me whether he's a plain man or
no. It's the way he talks and thinks and feels.

I've aye felt mysel' a plain man. Oh, I've made siller--I've done that
for years. But havin' siller's no made me less a plain man. Nor have
any honors that ha' come to me. They may call me Sir Harry Lauder the
noo, but I'm aye Harry to my friends, and sae I'll be tae the end o'
the chapter. It wad hurt me sair tae think a bit title wad mak' a
difference to ma friends.

Aye, it was a strange thing in yon days to be knowing that the dreams
the wife and I had had for the bairn could be coming true. It was the
first thing we thocht, always, when some new stroke o' fortune came--
there'd be that much mair we could do for the bairn. It surprised me
to find hoo much they were offering me tae sing. And then there was
the time when they first talked tae me o' singin' for the phonograph!
I laughed fit to kill masel' that time. But it's no a laughin' matter,
as they soon made me see.

It's no just the siller there's to be earned frae the wee discs,
though there's a muckle o' that. It's the thocht that folk that never
see ye, and never can, can hear your voice. It's a rare thing, and an
awesome one, tae me, to be thinkin' that in China and India, and
everywhere where men can carry a bit box, my songs may be heard.

I never work harder than when I'm makin' a record for the phonograph.
It's a queer feelin'. I mind weel indeed the first time ever I made a
record. I was no takin' the gramophone sae seriously as I micht ha'
done, perhaps--I'd no thocht, as I ha' since. Then, d'ye ken, I'd not
heard phonographs singin' in ma ain voice in America, and Australia,
and Honolulu, and dear knows where beside. It was a new idea tae me,
and I'd no notion 'twad be a gude thing for both the company and me
tae ha' me makin' records. Sae it was wi' a laugh on ma lips that I
went into the recording room o' one o' the big companies for the first
time.

They had a' ready for me. There was a bit orchestra, waitin', wi'
awfu' funny looking instruments--sawed off fiddles, I mind, syne a'
the sound must be concentrated to gae through the horn. They put me on
a stool, syne I'm such a wee body, and that raised my head up high
enow sae that ma voice wad carry straight through the horn to the
machine that makes the master record's first impression.

"Ready?" asked the man who was superintending the record.

"Aye," I cried. "When ye please!"

Sae I began, and it wasna sae bad. I sang the first verse o' ma song.
And then, as usual, while the orchestra played a sort o' vampin'
accompaniment, I sprang a gag, the way I do on the stage. I should ha'
gone straight on, then. But I didn't. D'ye ken what? Man, I waited for
the applause! Aye, I did so--there in front o' that great yawnin'
horn, that was ma only listener, and that cared nae mair for hoo I
sang than a cat micht ha' done!

It was a meenit before I realized what a thing I was doing. And then I
laughed; I couldna help it. And I laughed sae hard I fell clean off
the stool they'd set me on! The record was spoiled, for the players o'
the orchestra laughed wi' me, and the operator came runnin' oot tae
see what was wrang, and he fell to laughin', too.

"Here's a daft thing I'm doing for ye!" I said to the manager, who
stud there, still laughin' at me. "Hoo much am I tae be paid for this,
I'll no mak' a fool o' masel', singing into that great tin tube,
unless ye mak' the reason worth my while."

He spoke up then--it had been nae mair than an experiment we'd
planned, ye'll ken. And I'll tell ye straight that what he tauld me
surprised me--I'd had nae idea that there was sae muckle siller to be
made frae such foolishness, as I thocht it a' was then. I'll admit
that the figures he named fair tuk my breath awa'. I'll no be tellin'
ye what they were, but, after he'd tauld them tae me, I'd ha' made a
good record for my first one had I had to stay there trying all nicht.

"All richt," I said. "Ca' awa'--I'm the man for ye if it's sae muckle
ye're willin' tae pay me."

"Oh, aye--but we'll get it all back, and more beside," said the
manager. "Ye're a rare find for us, Harry, my lad. Ye'll mak' more
money frae these records we'll mak' togither than ye ha' ever done
upon the stage. You're going to be the most popular comic the London
halls have ever known, but still, before we're done with you, we'll
pay you more in a year than you'll make from all your theatrical
engagements."

"Talk sense, man," I tauld him, wi' a laugh. "That can never be."

Weel, ye'll not be asking me whether what he said has come true or
nicht. But I don't mind tellin' ye the man was no sica fool as I
thocht him!

Eh, noo--here's what I'm thinking. Here am I, Harry Lauder. For ane
reason or anither, I can do something that others do not do, whether
or no they can--as to that I ken nothing. All I know is that I do
something others ha' nae done, and that folk enow ha' been willin' and
eager to pay me their gude siller, that they've worked for. Am I a
criminal because o' that? Has any man the richt to use me despitefully
because I've hit upon a thing tae do that ithers do no do, whether or
no they can? Should ithers be fashed wi' me because I've made ma bit
siller? I canna see why!

The things that ha' aye moved me ha' moved thousands, aye millions o'
other men. There's joy in makin' ithers happy. There's hard work in
it, tae, and the laborer is worthy o' his hire.

Then here's anither point. Wad I work as I ha' worked were I allowed
but such a salary as some committee of folk that knew nothing o' my
work, and what it cost me, and meant tae me in time ta'en frae ma wife
and ma bairn at hame? I'll be tellin' ye the answer tae that question,
gi'en ye canna answer it for yersel'. It's NO! And it's sae, I'm
thinkin', wi' most of you who read the words I've written. Ye'll mind
yer own affairs, and sae muckle o' yer neighbors as he's not able to
keep ye from findin' oot when ye tak' the time for a bit gossip!

It'll be all verra weel to talk of socialism and one thing and
another. We've much tae do tae mak' the world a better place to live
in. But what I canna see, for the life o' me, is why it should be
richt to throw awa' all our fathers have done. Is there no good in the
institutions that have served the world up to now? Are we to mak'
everything ower new? I'm no thinking that, and I believe no man is
thinking that, truly. The man who preaches the destruction of
everything that is and has been has some reasons of his own not
creditable to either his brain or his honesty, if you'll ask me what I
think.

Let us think o' what these folk wad be destroying. The hame, for one
thing. The hame, and the family. They'll talk to us o' the state. The
state's a grand thing--a great thing. D'ye ken what the state is these
new fangled folk are aye talkin' of? It's no new thing. It's just the
bit country Britons ha' been dying for, a' these weary years in the
trenches. It's just Britain, the land we've a' loved and wanted to see
happy and safe--safe frae the Hun and frae the famine he tried to
bring upon it. Do these radicals, as they call themselves--they'd tak'
every name they please to themselves!--think they love their state
better than the boys who focht and deed and won loved their country?

Eh, and let's think back a bit, just a wee bit, into history. There's
a reason for maist of the things there are in the world. Sometimes
it's a good reason; whiles it's a bad one. But there's a reason, and
you maun e'en be reasonable when you come to talk o' making changes.

In the beginning there was just man, wasna there, wi' his woman, when
he could find her, and catch her, and tak' her wi' him tae his cave,
and their bairns. And a man, by his lane, was in trouble always wi'
the great beasties they had in yon days. Sae it came that he found it
better and safer tae live close by wi' other men, and what more
natural than that they should be those of his ane bluid kin? Sae the
family first, and then the clan, came into being. And frae them grew
the tribe, and finally the nation.

Ye ken weel that Britain was no always the ane country. There were
many kings in Britain lang agane. But whiles it was so armies could
come from over the sea and land, and ravage the country. And sae, in
the end, it was found better tae ha' the ane strong country and the
ane strong rule. Syne then no foreign invader has e'er set foot in
Britain. Not till they droppit frae the skies frae Zeppelins and
German Gothas ha' armed men stood on British soil in centuries--and
they, the baby killers frae the skies, were no alarming when they came
doon to earth.

Now, wull we be changing all the things all our centuries ha' taught
us to be good and useful? Maybe we wull. Change is life, and all
living things maun change, just as a man's whole body is changed in
every seven years, they tell us. But change that is healthy is
gradual, too.

Here's a thing I've had tae tak' note of. I went aboot a great deal
during the war, in Britain and in America. I was in Australia and New
Zealand, too, but it was in Britain and America that I saw most. There
were, in both lands, pro-Germans. Some were honest; they were wrang,
and I thocht them wicked, but I could respect them, in a fashion, so
lang as they came oot and said what was in their minds, and took the
consequences. They'd be interned, or put safely oot o' the way. But
there were others that skulked and hid, and tried to stab the laddies
who were doing the fichtin' in the back. They'd talk o' pacifism, and
they'd be conscientious objectors, who had never been sair troubled by
their conscience before.

Noo, it's those same folk, those who helped the Hun during the war by
talking of the need of peace at any price, who said that any peace was
better than any war, who are maist anxious noo that we should let the
Bolsheviks frae Russia show us how to govern ourselves. I'm a
suspicious man, it may be. But I cannot help thinking that those who
were enemies of their countries during the war should not be taken
very seriously now when they proclaim themselves as the only true
patriots.

They talk of internationalism, and of the common interests of the
proletariat against capitalism. But of what use is internationalism
unless all the nations of the world are of the same mind? How shall it
be safe for some nations to guide themselves by these fine sounding
principles when others are but lying in wait to attack them when they
are unready? I believe in peace. I believe the laddies who fought in
France and in the other battlegrounds of this war won peace for
humanity. But they began the work; it is for us who are left to finish
it.

And we canna finish it by talk. There must be deeds as weel as words.
And what I'm thinking more and more is that those who did not do their
part in these last years ha' small call to ask to be heard now.
There'd be no state for them to talk o' sae glibly noo had it no been
for those who put on uniforms and found the siller for a' the war
loans that had to be raised, and to pay the taxes.

Aye, and when you speak o' taxes, there's another thing comes to mind.
These folk who ha' sae a muckle to say aboot the injustice of
conditions pay few taxes. They ha' no property, as a rule, and no
great stake in the land. But they're aye ready to mak' rules and
regulations for those who've worked till they've a place in the world.
If they were busier themselves, maybe they'd not have so much time to
see how much is wrong. Have you not thought, whiles, it was strange
you'd not noticed all these terrible things they talk to you aboot?
And has it not been just that you've had too many affairs of your ain
to handle?

There are things for us all to think about, dear knows. We've come, of
late years, we were doing it too much before the war, to give too
great weight to things that were not of the spirit. Men have grown
used to more luxury than it is good for man to have. Look at our
clubs. Palaces, no less, some of them. What need has a man of a temple
or a palace for a club. What should a club be? A comfortable place, is
it no, whaur a man can go to meet his friends, and smoke a pipe,
maybe--find a bit and a sup if the wife is not at hame, and he maun be
eating dinner by his lane. Is there need of marble columns and rare
woods?

And a man's own hoose. We've been thinking lately, it seems to me, too
much of luxury, and too little of use and solid comfort. We wasted
much strength and siller before the war. Aweel, we've to pay, and to
go on paying, noo, for a lang time. We've paid the price in blood, and
for a lang time the price in siller will be kept in our minds. We'll
ha' nae choice aboot luxury, maist of us. And that'll be a rare gude
thing.

Things! Things! It's sae easy for them to rule us. We live up to them.
We act as if they owned us, and a' the time it's we who own them, and
that we maun not forget. And we grow to think that a'thing we've
become used to is something we can no do wi'oot. Oh, I'm as great a
sinner that way as any. I was forgetting, before the war came to
remind me, the days when I'd been puir and had had tae think longer
over the spending of a saxpence than I had need to in 1914, in you
days before the Kaiser turned his Huns loose, over using a hundred
poonds.

I'm not blaming a puir body for being bitter when things gae wrong.
All I'm saying is he'll be happier, and his troubles will be sooner
mended if he'll only be thinking that maybe he's got a part in them
himsel'. It's hard to get things richt when you're thinking they're a'
the fault o' some one else, some one you can't control. Ca' the guilty
one what you will--a prime minister, a capitalist, a king. Is it no
hard to mak' a wrong thing richt when it's a' his fault?

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