Between You and Me. Sir Harry Lauder
but I liked the concerts. I have never had a happier time in my work than in those days when I was building up my reputation as a concert comedian. There was an uncertainty about it that pleased me, too; there was something exciting about wondering just how things were going.
Now my bookings are made years ahead. I ha' been trying to retire—it will no be so lang, noo, before I do, and settle doon for good in my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon on the Clyde. But there is no excitement about an engagement now; I could fill five times as many as I do, if there were but some way of being in twa or three places at once, and of adding a few hours to the days and nichts.
I think one of the proudest times of my life was the first Saturday nicht when I could look back on a week when I had had a concert engagement each night in a different town. It was after that, too, that for the first time I flatly refused an engagement. I had the offer of a guinea, but I had fixed a guinea and a half as my minimum fee, and I would'na tak' less, though, after I'd sent the laddie awa' who offered me the guinea, I could ha' kicked myself.
There were some amusing experiences during those concert days. I often appeared with singers who had won considerable fame—artists who rendered classical numbers and opertic selections. I sometimes envied them for their musical gifts, but not seriously—my efforts were in a different field. As a rule I got along extremely well with my fellow performers, but sometimes they were inclined to look down on a mere comedian. Yell ken that I was making a name for myself then, and that I engaged for some concerts at which, as a rule, no comic singer would have been heard.
One night a concert had been arranged by a musical society in a town near Glasgow—a suburb of the city. I was to appear with a quartet soprano, contralto, tenor and bass. The two ladies and the tenor greeted me cheerfully enough, and seemed glad to see me—the contralto, indeed, was very friendly, and said she always went to hear me when she had the chance. But the bass was very distant. He glared at me when I came in, and did not return my greeting. He sat and scowled, and grew angrier and angrier.
"Well!" he said, suddenly. "The rest of you can do as you please, but I shall not sing to-night! I'm an artist, and I value my professional reputation too highly to appear with a vulgarian like this comic singer!"
"Oh, I say, old chap!" said the tenor, looking uncomfortable. "That's a bit thick! Harry's a good sort—I've heard him——"
"I'm not concerned with his personality!" said the bass. "I resent being associated with a man who makes a mountebank, a clown, of himself!"
I listened and said nothing. But I'll no be sayin' I did no wink at my friend, the contralto.
The other singers tried to soothe the bass down, but they couldn't. He looked like a great pouter pigeon, strutting about the room, and then he got red, and I thought he looked like an angry turkey cock. The secretary of the society came in, and the basso attacked him at once.
"I say, Mr. Smith!" he cried. "There's something wrong here, what! Fancy expecting me to appear on the same platform with this—this person in petticoats!"
The secretary looked surprised, as well he micht!!
"I'll not do it!" said the basso, getting angrier each second. "You can keep him or me—both you can't have!"
I was not much concerned. I was angry; I'll admit that. But I didna let him fash me. I just made up my mind that if I was no allowed to sing I'd have something to say to that basso before the evening was oot. And I looked at him, and listened to him bluster, and thought maybe I'd have a bit to do wi' him as well. I'm a wee man and a', but I'm awfu' strong from the work I did in the pit, and I'm never afraid of a bully.
I need ha' gie'n myself no concern as to the secretary. He smiled, and let the basso talk. And I'll swear he winked at me.
"I really can't decide such a matter, Mr. Roberts," he said, at last. "You're engaged to sing; so is Mr. Lauder. Mr. Lauder is ready to fulfill his engagement—if you are not I don't see how I can force you to do so. But you will do yourself no good if you leave us in the lurch—I'm afraid people who are arranging concerts will feel that you are a little unreliable."
The other singers argued with him, too, but it was no use. He would no demean himself by singing with Harry Lauder. And so we went on without him, and the concert was a great success. I had to give a dozen encores, I mind. And puir Roberts! He got no more engagements, and a little later became a chorus man with a touring opera company. I'm minded of him the noo because, not so lang syne, he met me face to face in London, and greeted me like an old friend.
"I remember very well knowing you, years ago, before you were so famous, Mr. Lauder," he said. "I don't just recall the circumstances—I think we appeared together at some concerts—that was before I unfortunately lost my voice——"
Aweel, I minded the circumstances, if he did not, but I had no the heart to remind him! And I "lent" him the twa shillin' he asked. Frae such an auld friend as him I was lucky not to be touched for half a sovereign!
I've found some men are so. Let you succeed, let you mak' your bit siller, and they remember that they knew you well when you were no so well off and famous. And it's always the same way. If they've not succeeded, it's always someone else's fault, never their own. They dislike you because you've done well when they've done ill. But it's easy to forgie them—it's aye hard to bear a grudge in this world, and to be thinkin' always of punishin' those who use us despite-fully. I've had my share of knocks from folk. And sometimes I've dreamed of being able to even an auld score. But always, when the time's come for me to do it, I've nae had the heart.
It was rare fun to sing in those concerts. And in the autumn of 1896 I made a new venture. I might have gone on another tour among the music halls in the north, but Donald Munro was getting up a concert tour, and I accepted his offer instead. It was a bit new for a singer like myself to sing at such concerts, but I had been doing well, and Mr. Munro wanted me, and offered me good terms.
That tour brought me one of my best friends and one of my happiest associations. It was on it that I met Mackenzie Murdoch. I'll always swear by Murdoch as the best violinist Scotland ever produced. Maybe Ysaye and some of the boys with the unpronounceable Russian names can play better than he. I'll no be saying as to that. But I know that he could win the tears from your een when he played the old Scots melodies; I know that his bow was dipped in magic before he drew it across the strings, and that he played on the strings of your heart the while he scraped that old fiddle of his.
Weel, there was Murdoch, and me, and the third of our party on that tour was Miss Jessie MacLachlan, a bonnie lassie with a glorious voice, the best of our Scottish prima donnas then. We wandered all over the north and the midlands of Scotland on that tour, and it was a grand success. Our audiences were large, and they were generous wi' their applause, too, which Scottish audiences sometimes are not. Your Scot is a canny yin; he'll aye tak' his pleasures seriously. He'll let ye ken it, richt enough, and fast enough, if ye do not please him. But if ye do he's like to reckon that he paid you to do so, and so why should he applaud ye as weel?
But so well did we do on the tour that I began to do some thinkin'. Here were we, Murdoch and I, especially, drawing the audiences. What was Munro doing for rakin' in the best part o' the siller folk paid to hear us? Why, nothin' at all that we could no do our twa selves—so I figured. And it hurt me sair to see Munro gettin' siller it seemed to me Murdoch and I micht just as weel be sharing between us. Not that I didna like Munro fine, ye'll ken; he was a gude manager, and a fair man. But it was just the way I was feeling, and I told Murdoch so.
"Ye hae richt, Harry," he said. "There's sense in your head, man, wee though you are. What'll we do?"
"Why, be our ain managers!" I said. "We'll take out a concert party of our own next season."
At the end of the tour of twelve weeks Mac and I were more determined than ever to do just that. For the time we'd spent we had a hundred pounds apiece to put in the bank, after we'd paid all our expenses—more money than I'd dreamed of being able to save in many years. And so we made our plans.
But we were no sae sure, afterward, that we'd been richt. We planned our tour carefully.