VALIANT MINSTREL
The Story of Harry Lauder
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
VALIANT MINSTREL
THE STORY OF
Sir HARRY
L A U D E R
Gladys Malvern
ILLUSTRATED BY
CORINNE MALVERN
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
First Edition published 1943 by Julian Messner, Inc.
Copyright © 1943, 2013 by Gladys Malvern estate
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2887-5
Distributed in 2015 by Open Road Distribution
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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For Corinne
—ma wee bonny lassie—
wi’ love.
The author wishes to express sincere gratitude for the gracious co-operation given her by Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mr. William Morris, Jr., and Miss Greta Lauder of Lauder Ha’.
“WHERE,” demanded Isabella Urquhart McLeod MacLennan Lauder, “is wee Harry? Where can th’ laddie be keepin’ himsel’—an’ it a Setterday?”
Six small round faces gazed up at her earnestly as she moved back and forth from the table to the great open fireplace where a huge pot of soup was bubbling invitingly, and the black iron kettle was making a little gurgling sound and thick oatcakes were slowly turning a luscious golden brown. The Lauder kitchen, with its low, smoke-blackened rafters and its flagstone floor, was an immaculate and crowded place. The floor was still damp from its recent scrubbing, and off in the far corner was a wooden double bed, a homemade cradle beside it. Already set for nine places, the table occupied the center space. A few straightbacked, badly scuffed chairs were lined up on either side of it, and off to the left was a large “dresser” with a glass front where Isabella kept her dishes. From pegs on the door hung a dark woolen shawl, a man’s pair of pants, and several small, much-worn jackets of varying sizes. The walls, once whitewashed, were a dingy, dispirited gray.
Six children, the oldest, Matt, not yet seven, were playing in a group on the floor. Isabella, her ground-length dress faded with many washings, her wide apron tied about her buxom waist, put some tea in a large, earthenware pot and glanced concernedly at the battered old clock on the mantel. She was a competent, cheerful soul, was Isabella, but now she heaved a deep sigh of exasperation, for what with the ten of them, there was always so much to do in that shabby, incredibly little house.
Patching—why, it seemed to Isabella that she was forever putting patches upon small garments until there was scarcely so much as an inch of the original fabric left; and the washing! Eight children, the oldest only eight, meant almost interminable hours over the washtub. But Isabella was strong and energetic. It was not the toil she minded, it was the constant nagging anxiety about money. Scarcely enough to buy food for the lot of them from one week’s end to the other. No matter how she schemed and scrimped there was rarely a penny left over to put in the kist on the mantel for that constantly anticipated “rainy day.” And what would they do if John or one of the bairns got sick? John was a good, conscientious workman, but suppose he were laid off? How would they live? How would they buy medicines? Charity—oh, God save them from the horror of ever having to take so much as a tuppence of charity!
“Pigs,” declared Matthew out of a long deep silence.
Isabella stopped and gazed down at him sharply. “Eh?”
“Pigs,” he repeated solemnly, and then, as if by way of explanation, “Harry.”
“Huh!” she frowned. “Pigs! An’ it a Setterday!”
Saturday was the busiest day of all for Isabella, for on Saturday clothes must be prepared for church, and two days’ cooking must be accomplished. The Lauders kept the Sabbath in the strict Scotch custom. No work was done and the children were allowed no games. All day Sunday the blinds in that tiny whitewashed cottage were drawn. No matter how inclement the weather, she and John went to the kirk in the morning and the children, shiny-clean, went to Sunday School. Then when the gloaming hung softly and wistfully over the quiet land, Isabella would gather her weans about her and read them stories from the Old Testament.
Sunday meant the nearest thing to ease that she and John had ever known. They had no knowledge of what the world calls the good things of life. They had never traveled, had never enjoyed the luxuries that make for gracious living. They had known toil and sacrifice; they had known poverty—harsh, unremitting—but one clear, enduring, shiny thing they had, and that was a simple, unshakable faith in the goodness of God.
Sometimes Isabella mused that it would be nice to have a house a bit larger than two rooms, it would be nice to see what sort of place the rest of Scotland was. Of course, she and John had not always lived here in Musselburgh. John came from Edinburgh, and she came from the Black Isle in Ross-shire. Then there was Portobello a few miles away, where her oldest son, Harry, had been born on August 4th, 1870. She scowled. Where was the laddie, anyhow?
A fine help around the house, was Harry. Even now, even at eight, he could bathe the weans as well as she could; and when, some months ago she had been bringing the last one into the world, Harry had actually done not only the cooking for the family, but the washing as well.
“Pigs,” said Matt again, with extreme seriousness.
“Aye. That’s where he is, ye ken. Doon lookin’ at Wattie Sandiland’s pigs. He’ll stand lookin’ at th’ pigs for hours, as if they were white angels oot o’ Heaven. Your faither says it’s because Harry’s gaen tae be a farmer when he grows up. Aweel, it’s a guid business. I mind ma ain faither was a carpenter, but Harry’ll be a farmer, richt enough, th’ way he’s that fond o’ th’ soo craes. He—”
She broke off, put both reddened hands on her hips, and stood grimly waiting. He was coming home at last, and despite herself a fond maternal smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. Singing! Aye a one for singin’! Hymns that he had learned at Sabbath School mostly, and Annie Laurie and The Campbells are Comin’, and now and then one of the popular songs of the day that he had picked up—she never knew how.
He had a strong, sure voice for a lad of eight. Whenever Harry sang, he put such zest into it that it was all she could do to keep from singing with him. But this was no time for singing. Now, she reminded herself firmly, she was going to be very stern and teach the young rascal a lesson.
His song ceased as he entered the kitchen and he stood grinning up at her despite the severity of her frown. Small for his age, but strong and sturdily built, he was not—even Isabella had to admit it—what would be called a handsome child. His hair was auburn, straight and unruly. His nose was too big and his ears were too big, but he had a grin that was wide and contagious, and his small blue eyes had a perpetual twinkle in them, as if he found the world a delightfully amusing place.
So they stood, looking at each other. It was a ludicrous picture he made, his feet bare, his clothes patched and soiled, his auburn hair tousled from the wind. His straight little body, so small itself, was wrapped in a heavy plaid among the folds of which, cradled like a papoose on his back, was the latest Lauder infant.
He was not abashed at her frown. He understood her too well and loved her too much to fear her.
“A graund time it is for ye tae be singin’,” she fumed. “That voice o’ yours—I mind th’ day ye were born. A gey row ye kickit up. Th’ neighbors doon th’ street heard ye roarin’ an’ cam’ ower tae ask if ye was twins. Come here tae me.”
He came, and turned his back to her without being told to do so. She unwound the heavy plaid and took the wean in her arms.
“D’ye mind it’s a Setterday?” she scowled. “An’ where hae ye been?”
The grin widened, the eyes were bright with excitement. “Mither,” he ordered, his legs apart and his head up-flung, “hold oot your hand!”
Wonderingly, she did so, and he dropped a sixpence into it. She gasped. He had expected her to gasp like that. This was the proudest day of his life, the day he brought home to his mother the first money he had earned. His had been no carefree childhood. He knew the scheming which preceded the spending of every penny. And now he was able to help.
It was wonderful. He felt grown up and proud of himself.
Her eyes still on the sixpence, Isabella sank into a convenient chair as if the sudden shock of unexpected wealth had drained the strength from her legs. Then she looked up at her son.
“Where—did ye—get—this?”
“I earned it. I’ve been workin’ a week for Wattie. There’ll be mair next week, Mither! A whole sixpence! Wattie said if I’d help him feed th’ pigs every day he’d gie me a sixpence every Setterday.”
He expected her to laugh, but she did not. Her eyes were grave. She knew Wattie Sandiland. Every day he went around town collecting swill for his pigs. He was old, cranky, and he had a quick temper.
“I’m tae help him mix th’ stuff for th’ pigs,” went on Harry, “and I’m tae help him dump it in th’ soo craes every evenin’.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s—no that I’m no gratefu’ for th’ siller, wee Harry,” she told him softly, “but Wattie’s an ould mon an’ he’s quick wi’ his blows.”
Harry laughed. He did not mind Wattle’s irritability. The sixpence was the important thing.
She sighed. “Aweel, I’ll speak tae your faither when he comes hame th’ nicht.”
He could not understand why she was not happy about the money. All the way home he had thought how she would laugh when she saw it, and how gay she would be as this week she would be able to drop a penny or two in the kist.
“Are ye fash wi’ me, Mither?” he asked.
She smiled and patted his shoulder. “No, Harry, no. You’re a guid lad.”
“Then—tell us a story!”
Even the younger children knew that word, and now they all began to echo it, crowding about her eagerly, faces upturned and expectant.
“A story, Mither! A story!”
Isabella gave a deep, martyrlike sigh. There was work to do and little time in which to do it before John would be coming home from the pottery works; but often before this she had stopped in the midst of her labors to acquiesce in the demands for a story. She had, it seemed, an unending fund of stories, and she delighted in telling them as much as her brood enjoyed hearing them. And what hair-raising tales they were! Stories of the Scots clans; stories of bogles, ghosts; stories of witches and water-kelpies and fairies.
The infant still in her arms, the seven older children squatting in a semicircle about her, Isabella’s eyes widened ominously, and her voice sank to a deep, impressively sepulchral tone.
“Once—upon—a time—”
Harry, Matt, George, Jock, Alec, Bella, Mary, Jean—there they were, all silent as little statues. Now and then as she stressed dark, dread happenings in the Scottish glens, one of them shivered and gave a quick, apprehensive glance over his shoulder.
As the story was ending, John Lauder came in, swinging his lunch pail. The children scrambled to their feet and ran toward him, clutching at his knees, pulling at his coat.
“Faither!” cried Matt, “Harry’s made some siller!”
Isabella, the baby balanced on one arm, walked briskly over to the fireplace and began stirring the soup with a long-handled ladle.
“Aye, John, it’s true. Harry’s made a sixpence helpin’ Wattie Sandiland wi’ his pigs.”
John smiled. He was a short man in his late twenties, slender and hardy. “It’ll be guid experience for him,” he declared cheerily, “it wull so. Th’ lad’ll be a farmer when he grows up. Let th’ flea stick tae th’ wa’.”
Like the proverbial flea sticking to the wall, Harry showed up at Wattie Sandiland’s soo craes promptly every evening for two weeks. He was ambitious, was Harry, and eager to please. Engrossed in his work, he mixed the swill and stirred it energetically with a long stick. Then, straining his mucles until his young face was blood-red and puffy, he lifted the heavy tins and dumped them into the trough.
But at the end of two weeks Isabella’s fears were realized. Her son came home one evening, his face swollen from a blow of Wattkie’s hand, his backside raw, his bare legs bruised. It did not matter that he had been unmercifully beaten. What mattered was that he had lost his job.
“It wasna’ ma fault,” he explained lugubriously to his mother, “one o’ th’ pigs deed. She choked on a biscuit that was i’ th’ swill an’ deed. An’ Wattie said I shouldna’ hae let her eat th’ biscuit.”
He sobbed a little after he went to bed that night, not only because of the pain in his body but because his pig-feeding career had ended. Yet he had tasted the joy of earning money, and he meant to be out looking for other employment as soon as school was over on the morrow.
“Hae ye said your prayers?” asked Isabella from the doorway.
In his sorrow, he had forgotten to pray. Now, stiffly, he climbed out of bed and knelt.
“As I lay me doon this night tae sleep,
I pray th’ Lord ma soul tae keep,
If I should dee before I wake,
I pray th’ Lord ma soul tae tak’.”
When he had climbed back into bed, Isabella with her candle walked away from the door and the tiny house was still. Harry lay there wondering what it would be like to fall asleep now and not to wake up in the morning. And what was a soul, anyway? And what would the Lord be doing in Musselburgh prowling around in the dark for the soul of wee Harry Lauder?
Years later the millions of people who saw him, applauded him, knew him, flattered and catered to him never suspected that before he went to sleep he never failed to repeat that ageless prayer which had so puzzled him as a boy.
It was some days before Harry succeeded in finding other employment, but he heard at last of a man who needed boys to pick strawberries. The road was dusty and the sun was hot. The man who gazed down at him was tall and stem, with a long face and small, suspicious eyes.
“Weel, whit do ye want?” he barked.
“Hoots, I came tae pick your berries!”
“Hmm. Hoo ould are ye?”
“I’m eight, sir.”
“Hmm. Can ye whustle?”
“Huh?”
“Can ye whustle?”
Even at that early age Harry was at a loss to understand exactly how being able to whistle was going to mean success as a berry picker, but he was eager to oblige, and promptly began a lusty whistling of Annie Laurie. The big man listened and nodded.
“Weel, take this can an’ get in there an’ start pickin’. Mind ye keep pickin’ an’ keep whustlin’!”
The gardener had discovered that boys who whistled could not eat his berries at the same time. There were many boys in the wide field, all of them whistling a different tune. Up and down the numerous long rows the gardener walked, listening. If a boy stopped whistling, it meant that he had started eating. So the boys whistled, and at the end of the day each received fourpence.
Harry’s berry-picking experience lasted only two days. At the end of that time he limped home to his mother, his backside again smarting. There were no tears this time. He was learning to take these things philosophically.
The berries had been tempting—luscious-sweet, dusty, hot and juicy. Whistling like that for hours at a time, one’s throat got dry. Surely, a fistful of berries popped lightning-swift into one’s mouth would be as refreshing as nectar. He withstood the temptation manfully the first day, but the second day he succumbed. Just as he stuffed the fruit into his mouth, the boss popped up, it seemed, from nowhere, caught hold of his collar and yanked him to his feet. The gardener reasoned that the punishment he was about to inflict was justified, for it would serve as an example to the others. So Harry was beaten again while his fellow-workers went on whistling.
Years later, when Harry Lauder was famous, when people were inviting him to luncheons and banquets, they wondered why it was that their guest of honor would never eat strawberries. Why, they said, it seemed as if the very sight of them brought him pain!
Paying jobs for an eight-year-old boy are not the easiest things in the world to find, and to Harry it had become of tremendous importance that he make money. To him, a sixpence seemed a fortune. Poverty was all about him, not only in his own home, but in the “wee but and bens” of his neighbors, something omnipresent, inescapable. This was the ugly kind of poverty which had to scheme for weeks before it could take a pair of boots to be mended at the cobbler’s; yet through it all, theirs was a cheerful house, for Isabella had learned to bear poverty with patience and even a certain gallantry, since she never expected to know anything else. She had a family to raise, and she considered it was her duty to raise them to be, not great men and women, not scholarly or rich or famous, but straight and clean and dependable. Imbued in Harry Lauder from babyhood was the creed that a promise must be scrupulously kept, that one must always pay one’s debts, and think thrice before one made them; that one must save rigidly; that one must expect to work for what one got—and work hard.
Ingrained in him, too, even at that early age, was an intense love of country, of his own Scotland with its sharply, strongly molded hills, its deep green woods, its swift-running rivers, its wide, brooding valleys and its broadly sweeping moors, melancholy, tranquil. No festive, feminine land is Scotland. It is a masculine and virile land, rugged, moody, sometimes kindly, sometimes cruel, but always beautiful and proud. This ardent love of country had been instilled into him from his schoolmaster, a gruff, bearded man named Fraser. It was not enough for Fraser to teach his students how to read and write and do sums. Scottish history was Fraser’s favorite theme. He expounded upon it eloquently. He drilled it into them day after day—stirring, glowing, inspiring were the tales he told of Bruce, Wallace, Robert Livingstone, Burns, Scott. It would be pretty tragic, Harry often thought, to be born an Englishman or a Norwegian or a German instead of a Scot. Young Lauder was proud that he had had the great good fortune to be bom in Scotland. He thought his country must be more lovely, greater, than any country on the face of the earth. Later, years later, he was to make people all over the globe feel that they, too, knew and loved Harry Lauder’s Scotland—the Scotland of the plain man, the wee hooses, the glens, the heather, the lassies, the gloaming, and the “braw, bricht, moonlicht nichts.”
“Scotland,” he announced one day in the schoolyard, “is th’ bonniest country i’ th’ whole wor-r-rld!”
An English boy, twice Harry’s size, who had lately joined the school, disputed this.
“It’s not ‘alf as good as England,” he declared, scornfully.
Harry gasped. Why, this was nothing short of sacrilege! For a moment he stood, his short, thickly set body tense, his bright blue eyes flashing and incredulous, his face red with anger. Then of a sudden he pounced upon England, lashing out with his small fists. England was stronger and bigger, but Harry hung on. They rolled in the dirt, they kicked and punched and yelled.
An hour later Isabella saw her son limping down the narrow, dusty road. His face was bruised and battered. One eye was already discolored; his clothes were torn, but his head was up—and he was singing “Draw the Sword, Scotland,” singing it lustily, with unmistakable bravado. He had been beaten, but he had fought for his country.
He was nine now, and he had been unemployed for almost a year. No one wanted a pig feeder, no one wanted a strawberry picker. There was nothing to do but help his mother around the house, play nursemaid to his younger brothers, and take the wean out for an airing strapped among the heavy folds of the warm plaid on his back.
Musselburgh was a neat little town, fronting on the sea, a place of small, one and two-story stone houses with sloping slate roofs. There was a wide beach with sands of rich golden hue. Up and down this beach went the fishwives wearing bright, full skirts and ‘kerchiefs, selling mussel broth and “buckies,” which was the local name for the periwinkle, a small shellfish. Here on the beach with the other children, young Harry played, and here he sat alone, his eyes staring somberly out to the horizon, asking himself how he could make a few pennies to help his mother.
His third opportunity came one early spring day when he wandered down to the Musselburgh station. There were crowds of boys lounging about, all of whom sprang to attention when the train from Edinburgh pulled in and men carrying golf bags stepped out of it. Instantly the golfers were surrounded by an army of ragged, screeching boys. “Carry your clubs, sir? Carry your clubs?”
Harry Lauder observed it all thoughtfully, speculatively. Obviously, one could not carry a bagful of clubs on one’s back and a wean at the same time.
He raced home, dashed breathlessly up to his mother, and turned his back to her while she unstrapped the infant. Hurriedly, he told her all that he had seen.
“It’s a braw business,” he maintained.
“Aye. I’ve heard many rich men came tae Musselburgh tae play their golf on th’ Musselburgh links. An’ how muckle wull ye get for carryin’ their bags?”
“I dinna ken, Mither.”
He was off, tearing down the street again. Presently he had joined the crowd of urchins who were waiting for the next train.
“How muckle wull ye be gettin’ for tae carry th’ clubs?” he asked eagerly.
“Twopence a round. Why?”
“I can carry clubs,” he told them.
They laughed goodnaturedly. “Hoots, look whit wants tae carry clubs! Why, he’s nae bigger than th’ bags themsel’s!”
“He’s naught but a wean!”
He was still small for his age, and younger than any of the rest, but when the train pulled in, and they tried to shove him out of the way, he found that he could dart under their arms and reach the very front of the line. Young though he was, his voice was amazingly strong and clear. It rang out, topping the others in a quick, sing-song chant: “Carry your clubs, Mister? Carry your clubs, sir?”
The bag grew heavy at the end of a long day, but sometimes a man would give the boy an extra penny. This was pleasant work, better than feeding pigs, better than picking berries. There were days now when Harry Lauder earned the unheard-of sum of sixpence (about twelve cents), and sometimes even ninepence. His short legs were tired when the game ended, but he ran home to his mother, his blue eyes glowing, and tossed his earnings into her lap with a lordly gesture. It was worth everything, just to see that broad smile creeping over her face and up into her eyes.
He had been caddying only a short time when he discovered a means of augmenting his income. Golfers in those days used what were called “gutta” balls. A club striking these balls sometimes split them in two. To the caddies that was a happy moment, for they were permitted to salvage the pieces. In the evenings Harry boiled these pieces in an old stew pot until they were almost the texture of clay. Then he sat at the kitchen table, carefully, patiently rolling the pulp while it hardened, shaping it into a long tapering cylinder, and finally after several hours, a gutta ball was transformed into a hard, tough whip which could be sold to the pony drivers in the mines.
Coming home from the links late one evening when he was eleven-and-a-half, he found that his father had already returned from the pottery works and was seated at the kitchen table. Isabella stood, her work-worn hands on her hips, her young face anxious.
“I’m no likin’ it, John,” she said firmly. “I’m no likin’ it at a’.”
John smiled coaxingly. “You’ll like it when ye get used tae it.”
“England!” she muttered. “Tae leave Scotland for England. I’ve a feelin’ nae guid wull come o’ it, John. We’d best be stayin’ here, mind I’m tellin’ ye. Ye ken I hae th’ feelin’ we should stay where we are.”
Harry stood, the money in his fist forgotten. Leave Musselburgh? Go to England? Why, this was incredible! Neither of his parents paid the slightest attention to him. Isabella’s face with its firmly chiseled features had a strained, almost frightened expression. Her husband smiled and assured her that Whittington Moor in Derbyshire was a very fine place to live, and besides, Pearson’s Pottery Works there had offered him more money.
“You’ll no be scoffin’ at a bit o’ extra siller,” he told her.
She shook her head gravely. “It’s—a—feelin’ I hae,” she answered, her voice dull with foreboding. “Nae guid wull come o’ oor leavin’ oor ain folk, John. Ma heart’s nae i’ this move. Ye ken I’ve nae mind tae be leaving Scotland. I’ll gae, but I dinna like it.”
He laughed again, rose, patted her shoulder affectionately.
“It’s a—feelin’ o’—danger” she insisted.
Again he laughed. Danger! What danger could there be in Whittington Moor? What danger could there be in a man of thirty-two earning more money? Was it not a man’s duty to improve his position when he got the chance?
She sighed. “Aye. Aye. We’ll gae, but I’m telling ye, mon, ma heart’s no i’ it.”
Yet she set to work energetically enough packing her skillets, and in a short time the Lauders were on their way to Whittington Moor.
To John and the children the trip was gloriously exciting. It was the first time the children had been on a train, and they stared with wonder-bright eyes out of the windows, while Isabella, very prim, tight-lipped and dignified, kept telling herself that there was nothing to fear, that this feeling she had of impending danger was very, very silly. Why should she feel like this? Why must every turn of the train wheels increase her apprehension? What could possibly happen to them in Whittington Moor? John was only thirty-two, hale and full of life. She was a few years younger, strong and healthy. The bairns—oh, dear God be good to them!—were strapping, vigorous youngsters. And it would be pleasant having a bit of extra siller each week. No, there was nothing to worry about, nothing at all; only—oh, if they could only turn right around and go back to Musselburgh!
Arriving at Whittington Moor, the Lauders rented a cottage no larger and even more ramshackle than the one they had left in Musselburgh. When they had been there only a few days John came home from the works one evening, and Isabella knew at the first glance that he was sick. The Lauders were a strapping, healthy brood, and to Harry it was strange and a little terrifying to have illness in the house and to have to be telling the younger children to keep quiet all the time. The doctor came and went, talking in low, solemn tones to Isabella. She listened, her hands clasped tensely, her tortured eyes riveted upon his face. She was looking pale, these days, and Harry knew that she was sitting up every night by his father’s bed. Pneumonia. The very word had a funereal sound.
Two weeks after their arrival in Whittington Moor, Isabella came out of the sickroom closing the door softly behind her. She was sobbing wildly. It was the first time she had cried during these seemingly endless days, and her sobs tore at Harry’s heart, hurting him like knife-thrusts. He felt uneasy and helpless as he stood watching her for some minutes. She sat there in the old chair by the window, and now and then she lifted her tear-swollen face ceilingward, crying out in agony, “Oh, God! Oh, God!”
Fearful, he came close to her and spoke in a hushed voice. “Mither, is he—is Faither—worse?”
“Harry! Harry!”
She caught him to her, pressing him hard against her body. He felt her tears on his cheek.
“Mither, dinna greet,” he pleaded.
“Harry, your—your faither’s—deed.”
“Deed!”
“Aye. Aye. God help us. God help us a’! Hoo’ll we live th’ noo? Hoo’ll we live, th’ nine o’ us? Ah, ma puir laddie!”
The hideous thought of charity which had haunted her all the days of her life now loomed like a specter. There would, she knew, be only enough insurance to bury John and bring herself and her bairns back to Scotland. And then what? What then? Charity! She shuddered.
“Ah, God hae mercy on us,” she moaned.
Harry blinked back the tears and straightened his shoulders. In that moment he knew a deep sense of his own responsibility. No longer did he feel like a child.
“Mither,” he pleaded softly, stroking back a wisp of her fine hair, “dinna greet. I love ye, Mither. I love ye. I’ll never be leavin’ ye. I’ll work, Mither.”
“YOU! You’re no twelve yet, wee Harry. What can you do?” she queried distractedly.
His young voice rang out solemnly. It was not a boast, it was a vow, a vow that he was making, not to her, but to himself. “I’ll work for ye, that’s what I’ll do. I wull so. I’ll work for ye. I’ll tak’ care o’ ye, Mither. I’ll tak’ care of all of us!”
EVEN though there was death in it, and tears, nonetheless, thought young Lauder as the train carried them back to Scotland, it was a bonny, bonny world. All the days of his life he remained very sure of that. It was a bonny world to him when later he left the sunlight behind and went down into the blackness of the earth. It was a bonny world to him when he saw it torn and bloody with war. It was, he maintained, a bonny world and well worth saving.
Now, despite the weeping of his mother, despite her pain and her fears, he knew within himself a quiet confidence that the world was going to let him make a living for himself and his family. He had not the faintest idea how he was to accomplish this. He knew nothing beyond the fact that they had only enough money to take them to Arbroath where his mother had decided to go because she had relatives there.
Ah, but it was good to be back in Scotland, he mused, when they had crossed the border. The air of Scotland was different from the air of England. It had been, surely, a grand adventure, this riding in a train, but evidently it was soon to end, for his mother had stopped weeping and become very busy wiping Alec’s nose, setting Jean’s bonnet to rights, helping Matt on with his jacket, and pushing back George’s hair.
Arbroath. Arbroath. Harry repeated it to himself several times, liking the sound of it. Would Arbroath, he wondered, be like Musselburgh?
It was vastly different from Musselburgh, he knew that the minute they stepped from the train. He could see chimneys, tall chimneys, factory chimneys. Arbroath was a small, busy, industriously prosperous town of about twenty thousand inhabitants. Here were engineering works, shoe factories, huge flax mills. The harbor was a bustling, noisy place where great boats from Russia and the Baltics brought in enormous quantities of flax which was speedily transported in large horse-drawn carts to the mills.
The Lauders trooped along the main street, Isabella leading the way, the baby in one arm, the other hand holding a battered and bulging valise. Matt and George were holding on to the sides of her shawl, their free hands clasping the strings of large, inexpertly wrapped bundles. A few yards behind came Harry, also laden with bundles, while Bella and Jean clung obediently to his short, tight little coat. Alec trotted along sturdily in the rear. Their few sticks of furniture were coming along by a later train. The valise and the bundles held the family wardrobe.
It was a somber, narrow street, devoid of any such pleasantry as a tree or a garden.
They were passing one of the mills now—Gordon’s Flax Mill, read the sign over the wooden gates. It was evening, and great streams of workers were pouring into the already crowded street. Harry watched them, his blue eyes alight with interest. Presently he saw a group of children, boys and girls of about his own age, leaving the mill. Did they work there? And if they did, why couldn’t he? A boy of his own age was walking tiredly beside him.
“Do ye work i’ th’ mill?” asked Harry.
“Aye. I’m a towie.”
Harry had no idea what a towie was, but he asked the boy if he thought he could be one, too.
“Aye. If you’re under fourteen ye can be a part-timer like me. If you’re fourteen, ye can work fu’ time.”
“Hoo muckle would ye be gettin’ fer tae be a part-timer?”
“Twa’ shillin’s a week.”
“Whit does it mean tae be a part-timer?”
“Ye go tae school one day an’ ye work th’ next. Th’ school’s run by th’ mon that owns th’ mill. Stumpy Bell’s th’ teacher.”
“Could I say I was fourteen, maybe, an’ work fu’ time?”
“No. They hae inspectors. Weel, I turn here th’ noo. G’bye.”
“G’bye. I’ll be seein’ ye at th’ mill!” he promised cheerily.
When the Lauders had settled down in Arbroath, they managed to exist without charity. Occasionally Isabella made a few pennies doing washing, baking, sometimes minding a neighbor’s brood as well as her own. This, with the two shillings (fifty cents) which was Harry’s weekly wage at the mill, was enough to pay for a shelter and barely sufficient to keep them from starving.
Though he was not yet twelve, Harry lost no time in securing a job at Gordon’s. It became, presently, a matter of dull routine, working twelve hours one day and going to school the next.
Being even a part-time towie was hard and monotonous. It meant moving at top speed like a rabbit in a cage, over the same stretch of floor a hundred times a day. When the tow had passed through the heckling machines, the towies collected it, brought it to large receptacles, dumped it in, and then stamped on it to press it down. Then back to the machines for more tow. There was never an end to the tow, never an end to the receptacles. The place was badly ventilated, and the air was heavy, especially in summer.
There was no use complaining. Tiresome though the work was, one must thank God for it, and pray that it would continue. The two shillings a week he earned was scarcely enough to feed a family of nine, and time after time Harry would go to a new mill claiming stoutly that he was fourteen. For a day or two he might work, his eyes and ears as alert as those of an animal, painfully on alert lest the inspector catch him. There were times when he would hear the inspector’s voice or catch sight of him before the man saw him. This meant a feverish scampering to hide behind some of the machinery until the inspector should be gone; but the man was not always considerate enough to announce his coming beforehand, and inevitably Harry was sent back to part-timing again. Finally he resigned himself to this, only counting the months until he would be fourteen.
But months are long. Back and forth, legs aching, muscles strained, the towies ran from machine to receptacle. If for a minute during that twelve-hour day they stopped stamping and paused to ease the stinging pain in their legs, the overseer roared at them, threatening them with the loss of their jobs. All day long one looked forward to the next day, which was school; and at school even while dodging the blows of Stumpy Bell, one dreaded the next day, which was the mill.
School was held in an old kirk. The schoolmaster was a stem, irascible man called “Stumpy” because of one leg which was considerably shorter than the other and encased in an iron brace. The slightest mistake was to Stumpy an infuriating thing. He never, however, caned the students. He had a more efficient method. There was always that iron boot with which to kick them. But despite his short temper and his sudden, often unexpected kicks, the boys held no grudge against Stumpy. At least, he was impartial in his kickings, and if the iron foot did not happen to strike a bone, it did not hurt too much.
Saturday was always schoolday, and Harry soon found a way to increase the family income on Saturdays. By rising at five o’clock he could deliver one hundred and fifty copies of the Arbroath Guide and still be on time when the school bell rang. Scotch winters are harsh, Scotch rains are torrents, Scotch winds are high and biting. Delivering the Arbroath Guide meant trudging miles along the roads when everyone else was asleep. It meant battling against the winds and the rain and the mud, but it meant, too, an extra ninepence every week, it meant extra milk for the younger children.
It was not Stumpy, it was not the mill, it was not the paper route that Harry hated. These dwindled almost to nothingness in comparison with the nightly tussle with the tow. This was the most nerve-shattering task of all. You loathed it, rebelled at it, but you kept on doing it—because you had to, because doing it meant an extra shilling and sixpence at the end of every week.
Mrs. Lauder and her boy Harry were not the only ones in Arbroath who “teased” tow night after night. Many of the poorer families supplemented their incomes in this manner. By applying for the work at the factories, the factory would dump at your house a hundred pounds at a time of old string, old ropes, old ship’s rigging. This must be “teased” into tow so that it could be woven into coarse cloth, perhaps for the sails of a ship.