Between You and Me

e comin' to know me, and to depend on me. I had no need, after a time, to be worrying; we were always sure of a good hoose, wherever we went.

' canny, they'll be tellin' ye, but not I! Ye maun do as well as ye can. There's the

He was so bricht, sae full o' speerit. A likely laddie he was. His mither and I

aither did before him," I used to say. "He sh

had the grande

sity?" she said. "I'd gie ma een te

ore it would be richt to be sending him off-time enow for me to earn as muckle siller as he micht need. Why should he no be a gentleman? His blood was gude on both sides, frae his mither and frae me. And, oh, I wish ye could

e lang, couldna believe I could hope to do the things it was in my heart and mind to try. They

a braw laddie, and we're all prood o' ye the noo. Don't seek to be what y

in yon days-saving the wife, and Mackenzie Mu

in the north country, Harry," he sa

, a Scots comic, to think o' London was like an ordinary man thinkin'

Harry. Ye've got what London'll be as mad to hear as

artist's feeling aboot such things is a curious one, and hard for any but artists to understand. It's a grand presumption in a man, if ye look at it in one way, that leads him to

for the chance to hear you! It's past belief, almost, how we can do it, in the beginning. I'm thinking, the noo, how gude a thing it was I did not know, when I fir

ran singer, as you micht say. I'd sung before all sorts of folk. They'd been quick enough to let me know the things they didn't like. In you days, if a man

e. But I've always learned from those that disapproved o' me. They're quieter the noo. I ha' to watch folk, a

' my ain songs, most often, and so I ken it frae the first. It's changed and changed, both in words and music, over and over again. Then, when I think it's finished, I begin to sing it to mysel'. I

in the world if I can sing a long "oh" sound, sometimes, instead o' a clippit e or a short a. To be abl

w the folk in front tak' it I can't be sure. It may strike them in a way quite different from my idea o' hoo it would. Then it may be I'll ha' to change ma business. My audiences always collaborate wi

n the hoose. But in America I must ha' been one o' the first to get an audience to singing. American audiences are the friendliest in the world, and th

g it on the stage; whiles it'll be a week or a month or mair before it suits me. There's nae end to the work if ye'd keep friends wi' those who come oot to hear ye, and it's just that some singers ha' never learned, so that they won

crossed the border; I'd been to Sunderland, and Newcastle on Tyne, but everywhere I'd been there was plenty Soots folk, and they knew the Scots talk and were used

here'd been a fair wave o' such false Scottish comics in the English halls, until everyone was sick and tired o' 'em. Sae it was the manag

deed, and I'm an awfu' determined wee man when ma mind's well made up. Times

Harry," they said, one and a'. "Why temp

thirty five shillings a week had looked enormous made me smile as I looked back upon them. And it would ha' been

ng, I'd be singing in Scotland yet, I do believe. But she was as bad as me. She wa

e, here and there, the wide world ower. Tak' your chance if it comes-ye'll no be lo

ome they ha' neither the wit to see nor the energy to seize upon. Such men one can but pity; they are born wi' somethin' lacking in them that a man needs. But there is anither sort,

ye'll hear them say, "just watch me tak' it! Oppo

the sound o' the knock on her door. Whiles the knock comes she'll lep' up and open, and that man's fortune is made frae that day forth. Ye maun e'en go seekin' opportunity y

r artist was ill, and they just wired wad I come? I was free at the time, and glad o' the siller to be made, for the offer was a gude one,

o' the world, and always, frae somewhere i' the hoose, I'll hear a Scots voice callin' me by name. Scots ha' made their way

prinkling o' Irish, the management had suggested that I should leave out my Scottish favorites when I made up my list o' songs. So I began wi' a senti

my native land. I love Scots talk, Scots food, Scots-aweel, I was aboot to say something that would only sadden many of my fri

there in Birkenhead, though it went sair against ma judgment. And one nicht, at t

I couldna stop the applauding. In America they say an artist "stops" the show when the audience applauds him so hard that it will not let the next turn go

," "Sing again, Harry," "Give us another," rising in all direct

a little Scot

er, and then one Scottish

arry," it roared. "I'll tak'

hestra leader. It happened that I'd the parts for some of my ain songs wi'

ish melody had been. I smiled to mysel' and went back to ma dressin' room to see wh

ose Scotch songs. Now do you see I was right fro

told me not to sing ma Scottish songs-that English audiences were tired o' e

didn't they? So ye're thinkin' I'd bette

man. What one audience has heard the next one knows about

m, or they've heard someone speak. I've been asked within a year to sing "Torralladdie"-the song I won a medal wi' at Glasga while I was still workin' in the pit at Hamilton! No evening is lang enow to

as at an end I was promptly re-engaged for a return visit the next season, at the biggest salary that had yet been offered to me. I was a prood man the day; I felt i

uld get, ye'll ken, but I'd not closed ma time yet wi' anyone. Some plans I'd had had been changed. So there I was. I could gang hame, and write a letter or twa, and be of