A Minstrel in France Part 1

A Minstrel In France.

by Harry Lauder.

CHAPTER I

Yon days! Yon palmy, peaceful days! I go back to them, and they are as a dream. I go back to them again and again, and live them over.

Yon days of another age, the age of peace, when no man dared even to dream of such times as have come upon us.

It was in November of 1913, and I was setting forth upon a great journey, that was to take me to the other side of the world before I came back again to my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon. My wife was going with me, and my brother-in-law, Tom Valiance, for they go everywhere with me. But my son John was coming with us only to Glasgow, and then, when we set out for Liverpool and the steamer that was to bring us to America he was to go back to Cambridge. He was near done there, the bonnie laddie. He had taken his degree as Bachelor of Arts, and was to set out soon upon a trip around the world.

Was that no a fine plan I had made for my son? That great voyage he was to have, to see the world and all its peoples! It was proud I was that I could give it to him. He was--but it may be I'll tell you more of John later in this book!

My pen runs awa' with me, and my tongue, too, when I think of my boy John.

We came to the pier at Dunoon, and there she lay, the little ferry steamer, the black smoke curling from her stack straight up to G.o.d.

Ah, the braw day it was! There was a frosty sheen upon the heather, and the Clyde was calm as gla.s.s. The tops of the hills were coated with snow, and they stood out against the horizon like great big sugar loaves.

We were a' happy that day! There was a crowd to see us off. They had come to bid me farewell and G.o.dspeed, all my friends and my relations, and I went among them, shaking them by the hand and thinking of the long whiles before I'd be seeing them again. And then all my goodbys were said, and we went aboard, and my voyage had begun.

I looked back at the hills and the heather, and I thought of all I was to do and see before I saw those hills again. I was going half way round the world and back again. I was going to wonderful places to see wonderful things and curious faces. But oftenest the thought came to me, as I looked at my son, that him I would see again before I saw the heather and the hills and all the friends and the relations I was leaving behind me. For on his trip around the world he was to meet us in Australia! It was easier to leave him, easier to set out, knowing that, thinking of that!

Wonderful places I went to, surely. And wonderful things I saw and heard. But the most wonderful thing of all that I was to see or hear upon that voyage I did not dream of nor foresee. How was a mortal man to foresee? How was he to dream of it?

Could I guess that the very next time I set out from Dunoon pier the peaceful Clyde would be dotted with patrol boats, das.h.i.+ng hither and thither! Could I guess that everywhere there would be boys in khaki, and women weeping, and that my boy, John----! Ah, but I'll not tell you of that now.

Peaceful the Clyde had been, and peaceful was the Mersey when we sailed from Liverpool for New York. I look back on yon voyage--the last I took that way in days of peace. Next time! Destroyers to guard us from the Hun and his submarines, and to lay us a safe course through the mines. And sailor boys, about their guns, watching, sweeping the sea every minute for the flash of a sneaking pirate's periscope showing for a second above a wave!

But then! It was a quiet trip, with none but the ups and doons of every Atlantic crossing--more ups than doons, I'm telling you!

I was glad to be in America again, glad to see once more the friends I'd made. They turned out to meet me and to greet me in New York, and as I travelled across the continent to San Francisco it was the same.

Everywhere I had friends; everywhere they came crowding to shake me by the hand with a "How are you the day, Harry?"

It was a long trip, but it was a happy one. How long ago it seems now, as I write, in this new day of war! How far away are all the common, kindly things that then I did not notice, and that now I would give the world and a' to have back again!

Then, everywhere I went, they pressed their dainties upon me whenever I sat down for a sup and a bite. The board groaned with plenty. I was in a rich country, a country where there was enough for all, and to spare. And now, as I am writing I am travelling again across America.

And there is not enough. When I sit down at table there is a card of Herbert Hoover's, bidding me be careful how I eat and what I choose.

Ay, but he has no need to warn me! Well I know the truth, and how America is helping to feed her allies over there, and so must be sparing herself.

To think of it! In yon far day the world was all at peace. And now that great America, that gave so little thought to armies and to cannon, is fighting with my ain British against the Hun!

It was in March of 1914 that we sailed from San Francisco, on the tenth of the month. It was a glorious day as we stood on the deck of the old Pacific liner _Sonoma_. I was eager and glad to be off. To be sure, America had been kinder to me than ever, and I was loath, in a way, to be leaving her and all the friends of mine she held--old friends of years, and new ones made on that trip. But I was coming back. And then there was one great reason for my eagerness that few folk knew--that my son John was coming to meet me in Australia. I was missing him sore already.

They came aboard the old tubby liner to see us off, friends by the score. They kept me busy shaking hands.

"Good-by, Harry," they said. And "Good luck, Harry," they cried. And just before the bugles sounded all ash.o.r.e I heard a few of them crooning an old Scots song:

"Will ye no come back again?"

"Aye, I'll come back again!" I told them when I heard them.

"Good, Harry, good!" they cried back to me. "It's a promise! We'll be waiting for you--waiting to welcome you!"

And so we sailed from San Francisco and from America, out through the Golden Gate, toward the sunset. Here was beauty for me, who loved it new beauty, such as I had not seen before. They were quiet days, happy days, peaceful days. I was tired after my long tour, and the days at sea rested me, with good talk when I craved it, and time to sleep, and no need to give thought to trains, or to think, when I went to bed, that in the night they'd rouse me from my sleep by switching my car and giving me a b.u.mp.

We came first to Hawaii, and I fell in love with the harbor of Honolulu as we sailed in. Here, at last, I began to see the strange sights and hear the strange sounds I had been looking forward to ever since I left my wee hoose at Dunoon. Here was something that was different from anything that I had ever seen before.

We did not stay so long. On the way home I was to stay over and give a performance in Honolulu, but not now. Our time was given up to sight seeing, and to meeting some of the folk of the islands. They ken hospitality! We made many new friends there, short as the time was. And, man! The la.s.sies! You want to cuddle the first la.s.sie you meet when you step ash.o.r.e at Honolulu. But you don't--if the wife is there!

It was only because I knew that we were to stop longer on the way back that I was willing to leave Honolulu at all. So we sailed on, toward Australia. And now I knew that my boy was about setting out on his great voyage around the world. Day by day I would get out the map, and try to p.r.i.c.k the spot where he'd be.

And I'd think: "Aye! When I'm here John'll be there! Will he be nearer to me than now?"

Thinking of the braw laddie, setting out, so proud and happy, made me think of my ain young days. My father couldna' give me such a chance as my boy was to have. I'd worked in the mines before I was John's age. There'd been no Cambridge for me--no trip around the world as a part of my education. And I thanked G.o.d that he was letting me do so much for my boy.

Aye, and he deserved it, did John! He'd done well at Cambridge; he had taken honors there. And soon he was to go up to London to read for the Bar. He was to be a barrister, in wig and gown, my son, John!

It was of him, and of the meeting we were all to have in Australia, that I thought, more than anything else, in the long, long days upon the sea. We sailed on from Honolulu until we came to Paga-Paga. So it is spelled, but all the natives call it Panga-Panga.

Here I saw more and yet more of the strange and wonderful things I had thought upon so long back, in Dunoon. Here I saw mankind, for the first time, in a natural state. I saw men who wore only the figleaf of old Father Adam, and a people who lived from day to day, and whom the kindly earth sustained.

They lived entirely from vegetables and from clear crystal streams and upon marvelous fish from the sea. Ah, how I longed to stay in Paga-Paga and be a natural man. But I must go on. Work called me back to civilization and sorrow-fully I heeded its call and waved good-by to the natural folk of Paga-Paga!

It was before I came to Paga-Paga that I wrote a little verse inspired by Honolulu. Perhaps, if I had gone first to Paga-Paga-- don't forget to put in the n and call it Panga-Panga when you say it to yourself!--I might have written it of that happy island of the natural folk. But I did not, so here is the verse:

I love you, Honolulu, Honolulu I love you!

You are the Queen of the Sea!

Your valleys and mountains Your palais and fountains Forever and ever will be dear to me!

I wedded a simple melody to those simple, heart-felt lines, and since then I have sung the song in pretty nearly every part of the world-- and in Honolulu itself.

Our journey was drawing to its end. We were coming to a strange land indeed. And yet I knew there were Scots folk there--where in the world are there not? I thought they would be glad to see me, but how could I be sure? It was a far, far cry from Dunoon and the Clyde and the frost upon the heather on the day I had set out.

We were to land at Sydney. I was a wee bit impatient after we had made our landfall, while the old _Sonoma_ poked her way along. But she would not be hurried by my impatience. And at last we came to the Sydney Heads--the famous Harbor Heads. If you have never seen it I do not know how better to tell you of it than to say that it makes me think of the entrance to a great cave that has no roof. In we went-- and were within that great, nearly landlocked harbor.

And what goings on there were! The harbor was full of craft, both great and sma'. And each had all her bunting flying. Oh, they were braw in the sunlight, with the gay colors and the bits of flags, all fluttering and waving in the breeze!

And what a din there was, with the shrieking of the whistle and the foghorns and the sirens and the clamor of bells. It took my breath away, and I wondered what was afoot. And on the sh.o.r.e I could see that thousands of people waited, all crowded together by the water side. There were flags flying, too, from all the buildings.

"It must be that the King is coming in on a visit--and I never to have heard of it!" I thought.

And then they made me understand that it was all for me!

If there were tears in my eyes when they made me believe that, will you blame me? There was that great harbor, all alive with the welcome they made for me. And on the sh.o.r.e, they told me, a hundred thousand were waiting to greet me and bid me:

"Welcome, Harry!"

The tramways had stopped running until they had done with their welcome to inc. And all over the city, as we drove to our hotel, they roared their welcome, and there were flags along the way.