Part 2 (2/2)

In the afternoon I was a stage carpenter, and devoted myself to seeing that every thing at the hall was ready for the performance in the evening. Sometimes that was easy; sometimes, in badly equipped halls, the task called for more ingenuity than I had ever before supposed that I possessed. But there was no rest for me, even then; I had to be back at the hall after tea and check up part of the house. And then all I had to do was what I had at first fondly supposed I had been engaged to do--sing my songs! I sang six songs regularly every night, and if the audience was good to me and liberal in its applause I threw in two or three encores.

I had never been so happy in my life. I had always been a great yin for the open air and the suns.h.i.+ne, and here, for years, I had spent all my days underground. I welcomed the work that went with the engagement, for it kept me much out of doors, and even when I was busy in the halls, it was no so bad--I could see the sunlight through the windows, at any rate. And then I could lie abed in the morning!

I had been used so long to early rising that I woke up each day at five o'clock, no matter how late I'd gone to bed the nicht before. And what a glorious thing it was to roll right over and go to sleep again!

Then there was the travelling, too. I had always wanted to see Scotland, and now, in these fourteen weeks, I saw more of my native land than, as a miner, I might have hoped to do in fourteen years--or forty. Little did I think, though, then, of the real travelling I was to do later in my life, in the career that was then just beginning!

I made many friends on that first tour. And to this day nothin'

delights me more than to have some in an audience seek me out and tell me that he or she heard me sing during those fourteen weeks. There is a story that actually happened to me that delights me, in connection with that.

It was years after that first tour. I was singing in Glasgow one week, and the hall was crowded at every performance--though the management 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 s.h.i.+llin' 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts, 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 pa.s.sed.

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.”

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