A Minstrel in France

by Sir Harry Lauder

I wear the kilt nearly always, myself, as I have said. Partly I do so because it is my native costume, and I am proud of my Highland birth; partly because I revel in the comfort of the costume. But it brings me some amusing experiences. Very often I am asked a question that is, I presume, fired at many a Hieland soldier, intimate though it is.

"I say, Harry," someone will ask me, "you wear the kilt. Do you not wear anything underneath it?"

I do, myself. I wear a very short pair of trunks, chiefly for reasons of modesty. So do some of the soldiers. But if they do they must provide it for themselves; no such garment is served out to them with their uniform. And so the vast majority of the men wear nothing but their skins under the kilt. He is bare, that is, from the waist to the hose—except for the kilt. But that is garment enough! I'll tell ye so, and I'm thinkin' I know!

So clad the Highland soldier is a great deal more comfortable and a great deal more sanely dressed, I believe, than the city dweller who is trousered and underweared within an inch of his life. I think it is a matter of medical record, that can be verified from the reports of the army surgeons, that the kilted troops are among the healthiest in the whole army. I know that the Highland troops are much less subject to abdominal troubles of all sorts—colic and the like. The kilt lies snug and warm around the stomach, in several thick layers, and a more perfect protection from the cold has never been devised for that highly delicate and susceptible region of the human anatomy.

Women, particularly, are always asking me another question. I have seen them eyeing me, in cold weather, when I was walkin' around, comfortably, in my kilt. And their eyes would wander to my knees, and I would know before they opened their mouths what it was that they were going to say.

"Oh, Mr. Lauder," they would ask me. "Don't your poor knees get cold— with no coverings, exposed to this bitter cold?"

Well, they never have! That's all I can tell you. They have had the chance, in all sorts of bitter weather. I am not thinking only of the comparitively mild winters of Britain—although, up north, in Scotland, we get some pretty severe winter weather. But I have been in Western Canada, and in the northwestern states of the United States, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, where the thermometer drops far below zero. And my knees have never been cold yet. They do not suffer from the cold any more than does my face, which is as little covered and protected as they—and for the same reason, I suppose. They are used to the weather.

And when it comes to the general question of health, I am certain, from my own experience, that the kilt is best. Several times, for one reason or another, I have laid my kilts aside and put on trousers. And each time I have been seized by violent colds, and my life has been made wretched. A good many soldiers of my acquaintance have had the same experience.

Practical reasons aside, however, the Scots soldier loves his kilt, and would fight like a steer to keep from having it taken away from him, should anyone be so foolish as to try such a performance. He loves it, not only because it is warm and comfortable, but because it is indistinguishably associated in his mind with some of the most glorious pages of Scottish history. It is a sign and symbol of his hameland to him. There have been times, in Scotland, when all was not as peaceful in the country's relations with England as it now is, when the loyal Scot who wore the kilt did so knowing that he might be tried for his life for doing so, since death had been the penalty appointed for that "crime."

Aye, it is peace and friendship now between Scot and Englishman. But that is not to say that there is no a friendly rivalry between them still. English regiments and Scots regiments have a lot of fun with one another, and a bit rough it gets, too, at times. But it is all in fun, and there is no harm done. I have in mind a tale an officer told me—though the men of whom he told it did not know that an officer had any inkling of the story.