Between You and Me

by Sir Harry Lauder

Weel, Andy'd learned nothing he hadn't been told a million times by his parents and his friends. But he was one of those who maun learn for themselves to mak siccar. Can ye no see how like he was to some of them that's makin' a great name for themselves the noo, goin' up and doon the land tellin' us what we should do? I'm no the one to say that it should be every man for himself; far from it. We've all to think of others beside ourselves. But when it comes to winning or losing in this battle of life we've all got to learn the same lesson that cost poor Andy so dear. We maun stand on our ain feet. Neither God nor man can help us until we've begun to help ourselves.

CHAPTER III

In the beginnin' I was no a miner, ye ken, in the pit at Hamilton. I went doon first as a miner's helper, but that was for but the one week. And at its end my gaffer just went away. He was to pay me ten shillings, but never a three-penny bit of all that siller did I see! It was cruel hard, and it hurt me sore, to think I'd worked sae long and so hard and got nothing for it, but there was no use greetin'. And on Monday I went doon into the pit again, but this time as a trapper.

In a mine, ye ken, there are great air-tight gates. Without them there'd be more fires and explosions than there are. And by each one there's a trapper, who's to open and close them as the pony drivers with their lurches that carry the mined coal to the hoists go in and out. Easy work, ye'll say. Aye—if a trapper did only what he was paid for doing. He's not supposed to do ought else than open and close gates, and his orders are that he must never leave them. But trappers are boys, as a rule, and the pony drivers strong men, and they manage to make the trappers do a deal of their work as well as their ain. They can manage well enough, for they're no slow to gie a kick or a cuff if the trapper bids them attend to their own affairs and leave him be.

I learned that soon enough. And many was the blow I got; many the time a driver warmed me with his belt, when I was warm enough already. But, for a' that, we had good times in the pit. I got to know the men I worked with, and to like them fine. You do that at work, and especially underground, I'm thinking. There, you ken, there's always some danger, and men who may dee together any day are like to be friendly while they have the chance.

I've known worse days, tak' them all in all, than those in Eddlewood Colliery. We'd a bit cabin at the top of the brae, and there we'd keep our oil for our lamps, and leave our good coats. We'd carry wi' us, too, our piece—bread and cheese, and cold tea, that served for the meal we ate at midday.

'Twas in the pit, I'm thinkin', I made my real start. For 'twas there I first began to tak' heed of men and see how various they were. Ever since then, in the days when I began to sing, and when my friends in the audiences decided that I should spend my life so instead of working mair with my twa hands, it's been what I knew of men and women that's been of service to me. When I come upon the idea for a new song 'tis less often a bit of verse or a comic idea I think of first—mair like it's some odd bit of humanity, some man a wee bit different from others. He'll be a bit saft, perhaps, or mean, or generous—I'm not carin', so long as he's but different.

And there, in the pit, men showed themselves to one another, and my een and my ears were aye open in those days. I'd try to be imitating this queer character or that, sometimes, but I'd do it only for my ain pleasure. I was no thinkin', in yon days, of ever singing on the stage. How should I ha' done so? I was but Harry Lauder, strugglin' hard to mak siller enough to help at home.

But, whiles I was at my work, I'd sing a bit song now and again, when I thought no one was by to hear. Sometimes I was wrong, and there's be one nearer than I thought. And so it got aboot in the pit that I could sing a bit. I had a good voice enough, though I knew nothing, then, of how to sing—I've learned much of music since I went on the stage. Then, though, I was just a boy, singing because he liked to hear himself sing. I knew few and I'd never seen a bit o' printed music. As for reading notes on paper I scarcely knew such could be done.

The miners liked to have me sing. It was in the cabin in the brae, where we'd gather to fill our lamps and eat our bread and cheese, that they asked me, as a rule. We were great ones for being entertained. And we never lacked entertainers. If a man could do card tricks, or dance a bit, he was sure to be popular. One man was a fairish piper, and sometimes the skirl of some old Hieland melody would sound weird enough, as I made my way to the cabin through a grey mist.