Between You and Me

by Sir Harry Lauder

Nor have we. We had our fire—the fire the Kaiser lighted. It was arson caused our fire—it was a firebug started it, no spontaneous combustion, as some wad ha' us think. And we called the firemen—the braw laddies frae all the world, who set to work and never stopped till the fire was oot. Noo they've gaed hame aboot their other business. We'll no be wanting to call them oot again. It was a cruel, hard task they had; it was a terrible ficht they had tae make.

It's sma' wonder, after such a conflagration, that there's spots i' the world where there's a bit of flame still smouldering. It's for us tae see that they're a' stamped oot, those bits of fire that are still burning. We can do that ourselves—no need to ca' the tired firemen oot again. And then there's the hoose itself!

Puir hoose! But how should it have remained the same? Man, you'd no expect to sleep in your ain hoose the same nicht there'd been a fire to put out? You'd be waiting for the insurance folks. And you'd know that the furniture was a' spoiled wi' water, and smoke. And there'll be places where the firemen had to chop wi' their axes. They couldna be carfu' wi' what was i' the hoose—had they been sae there'd be no a hoose left at a' the noo.

Sae are they no foolish folk that were thinking that sae soon as peace came a' would be as it was before yon days in August, 1914? Is it but five years agane? It is—but it'll tak' us a lang time tae bring the world back to where it was then. And it can't be the same again. It can't. Things change.

Here's what there is for us tae do. It's tae see that the change is in the richt direction. We canna stand still the noo. We'll move. We'll move one way or the other—forward or back.

And I say we dare not move back. We dare not, because of the graves that have been filled in France and Gallipoli and dear knows where beside in these last five years. We maun move forward. They've left sons behind them, many of the laddies that died to save us. Aye, there's weans in Britain and America, and in many another land, that will ne'er know a faither.

We owe something to those weans whose faithers deed for this world's salvation. We owe it to them and to their faithers tae see that they have a better world to grow up in than we and their faithers knew. It can be a better world. It can be a bonnier world than any of us have ever dreamed of. Dare I say that, ye'll be asking me, wi' the tears of the widow and the orphan still flowing fresh, wi' the groans of those that ha' suffered still i' our ears?

Aye, I dare say it. And I'll be proving it, tae, if ye'll ha' patience wi' me. For it's in your heart and mine that we'll find the makings of the bonnier world I can see, for a' the pain.

Let's stop together and think a bit. We were happy, many of us, in yon days before the war. Our loved yins were wi' us. There was peace i' a' the world. We had no thought that any wind could come blowing frae ootside ourselves that would cast down the hoose of our happiness. Wasna that sae? Weel, what was the result?

I think we were selfish folk, many, too many, of us. We had no thought, or too little, for others. We were so used to a' we had and were in the habit of enjoying that we forgot that we owed much of what we had to others. We were becoming a very fierce sort of individualists. Our life was to ourselves. We were self-sufficient. One of the prime articles of our creed was Cain's auld question: