Between You and Me. Sir Harry Lauder
had raised the prices, for which I was sorry. I heard two women speaking. Said one:
"Ha' ye heard Harry sing the week?"
The other answered:
"That I ha' not!"
"And will ye no'?"
"I will no'! I heard him lang ago, when he was better than he is the noo, for twapence! Why should I be payin' twa shillin' the noo?"
And, do you ken, I'm no sure she was'na richt! But do not be tellin' I said so!
That first tour had to end. Fourteen weeks seemed a long time then, though, the last few days rushed by terribly fast. I was nervous when the end came. I wondered if I would ever get another engagement. It seemed a venturesome thing I had done. Who was I, Harry Lauder, the untrained miner, to expect folk to pay their gude siller to hear me sing?
There was an offer for an engagement waiting for me when I got home. I had saved twelve pounds of my earnings, and it was proud I was as I put the money in my wife's lap. As for her, she behaved as if she thought her husband had come hame a millionaire. The new engagement was for only one night, but the fee was a guinea and a half—twice what I'd made for a week's work in the pit, and nearly what I'd earned in a week on tour.
But then came bad days. I was no well posted on how to go aboot getting engagements. I could only read all the advertisements, and answer everyone that looked as if it might come to anything. And then I'd sit and wait for the postie to come, but the letters he brought were not for me. It looked as though I had had all my luck.
But I still had my twelve pounds, and I would not use them while I was earning no more. So I decided to go back to the pit while I waited. It was as easy—aye, it was easier!—to work while I waited, since wait I must. I hauled down my old greasy working clothes, and went off to the pithead. They were glad enough to take me on—gladder, I'm thinkin', than I was to be taken. But it was sair hard to hear the other miners laughing at me.
"There he gaes—the stickit comic," I heard one man say, as I passed. And another, who had never liked me, was at pains to let me hear his opinion, which was that I had "had the conceit knocked oot o' me, and was glad tae tak' up the pick again."
But he was wrong, If it was conceit I had felt, I was as full of it as ever—fuller, indeed. I had twelve pounds to slow for what it had brought me, which was more than any of those who sneered at me could say for themselves. And I was surer than ever that I had it in me to make my mark as a singer of comic songs. I had listened to other singers now, and I was certain that I had a new way of delivering a song. My audiences had made me feel that I was going about the task of pleasing them in the right way. All I wanted was the chance to prove what was so plain to me to others, and I knew then, what I have found so often, since then, to be true, that the chance always comes to the man who is sure he can make use of it.
So I plied my pick cheerfully enough all day, and went hame to my wife at nicht with a clear conscience and a hopeful heart. I always looked for a letter, but for a long time I was disappointed each evening. Then, finally, the letter I had been looking for came. It was from J. C. MacDonald, and he wanted to know if I could accept an engagement at the Greenock Town Hall in New Year week, for ten performances. He offered me three pounds—the biggest salary anyone had named to me yet. I jumped at the chance, as you may well believe.
Oh, and did I no feel that I was an actor then? I did so, surely, and that very nicht I went out and bought me some astrachan fur for the collar of my coat! Do ye ken what that meant to me in yon days? Then every actor wore a coat with a fur trimmed collar—it was almost like a badge of rank. And I maun be as braw as any of them. The wife smiled quietly as she sewed it on for me, and I was a proud wee man when I strolled into the Greenock Town Hall. Three pounds a week! There was a salary for a man to be proud of. Ye'd ha' thought I was sure already of making three pounds every week all my life, instead of havin' just the one engagement.
Pride goeth before a fall ever, and after that, once more, I had to wait for an engagement, and once more I went back to the pit. I folded the astrachan coat and put it awa' under the bed, but I would'na tak' off the fur.
"I'll be needin' you again before sae lang," I told the coat as I folded it. "See if I don't."
And it was even so, for J. C. MacDonald had liked my singing, and I had been successful with my audiences. He used his influence and recommended me on all sides, and finally, and, this time, after a shorter time than before in the pit, Moss and Thornton offered me a tour of six weeks.
"Nance," I said to the wife, when the offer came and I had written to accept it, "I'm thinkin' it'll be sink or swim this time. I'll no be goin' back to the pit, come weal, come woe."
She looked at me.
"It's bad for the laddies there to be havin' the chance to crack their jokes at me," I went on. "I'll stick to it this time and see whether I can mak' a living for us by singin'. And I think that if I can't I'll e'en find other work than in the mine."
Again she proved herself. For again she said: "It's yersel' ye must please, Harry. I'm wi' ye, whatever ye do."
That tour was verra gude for me. If I'd conceit left in me, as my friend in the pit had said, it was knocked out. I was first or last on every bill, and ye ken what it means to an artist to open or close a bill? If ye're to open ye have to start before anyone's in the theatre; if ye close, ye sing to the backs of people crowdin' one another to get out. It's discouraging to have to do so, I'm tellin' ye, but it's what makes you grit your teeth, too, and determine to gon, if ye've any of the richt stuff in ye.
I sang in bigger places on that tour, and the last two weeks were in Glasgow, at the old Scotia and Gayety Music Halls. It was at the Scotia that a man shouted at me one of the hardest things I ever had to hear. I had just come on, and was doing the walk around before I sang my first song, when I heard him, from the gallery.
"Awa' back tae the pit, man!" he bellowed.
I was so angry I could scarce go on. It was no fair, for I had not sung a note. But we maun learn, on the stage, not to be disconcerted by anything an audience says or does, and, somehow, I managed to go on. They weren't afraid, ever, in yon days, to speak their minds in the gallery—they'd soon let ye know if they'd had enough of ye and yer turn. I was discouraged by that week in old Glasgow. I was sure they'd had enough of me, and that the career of Harry Lauder as a comedian was about to come to an inglorious end.
But Moss and Thornton were better pleased than I was, it seemed, for no sooner was that tour over than they booked me for another. They increased my salary to four pounds a week—ten shillings more than before. And this time my position on the bill was much better; I neither closed nor opened the show, and so got more applause. It did me a world of good to have the hard experience first, but it did me even more to find that my confidence in myself had some justification, too.
That second Moss and Thornton tour was a real turning point for me. I felt assured of a certain success then; I knew, at least, that I could always mak' a living in the halls. But mark what a little success does to a man!
I'd scarce dared, a year or so before, even to smile at those who told me, half joking, that I might be getting my five pound a week before I died. I'd been afraid they'd think I was taking them seriously, and call me stuck up and conceited. But now I was getting near that great sum, and was sure to get all of it before so long. And I felt that it was no great thing to look ahead to—I, who'd been glad to work hard all week in a coal mine for fifteen shillings!
The more we ha' the more we want. It's always the way wi' all o' us, I'm thinkin'. I was no satisfied at all wi' my prospects and I set out to do all I could, wi' the help of concerts, to better conditions.
CHAPTER V
There was more siller to be made from concerts in yon days than from a regular tour that took me to the music halls. The halls meant steady