But then I began to sing, making a signal to Johnson to let me sing alone.  And when I came to the chorus, true to the big Highlander’s promise, they all did join in the chorus!  And what a chorus that was!  Thousands of men were singing.

     “There’s a wee hoose amang the heather,
      There’s a wee hoose o’er the sea. 
      There’s a lassie in that wee hoose
      Waiting patiently for me. 
      She’s the picture of perfection—­
      I would na tell a lee
      If ye saw her ye would love her
      Just the same as me!”

My voice was very shaky when I came to the end of that chorus, but the great wave of sound from the kilted laddies rolled out, true and full, unshaken, unbroken.  They carried the air as steadily as a ship is carried upon a rolling sea.

I could sing no more for them, and then, as I made my way, unsteadily enough, from the platform, music struck up that was the sweetest I could have heard.  Some pipers had come together, from twa or three regiments, unknown to me, and now, very softly, their pipes began to skirl.  They played the tune that I love best, “The Drunken Piper.”  I could scarcely see to pick my way, for the tears that blinded me, but in my ears, as I passed away from them, there came, gently wailing on the pipes, the plaintive plea—­

 “Will ye no come back again?”

CHAPTER XXIII

Now it was time to take to the motor cars again, and I was glad of the thought that we would have a bracing ride.  I needed something of the sort, I thought.  My emotions had been deeply stirred, in many ways, that day.  I felt tired and quite exhausted.  This was by all odds the most strenuous day the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour had put in yet in France.  So I welcomed the idea of sitting back comfortably in the car and feeling the cool wind against my cheeks.

First, however, the entertainers were to be entertained.  They took us, the officers of the divisional staff, to a hut, where we were offered our choice of tea or a wee hauf yin.  There was good Scots whisky there, but it was the tea I wanted.  It was very hot in the sun, and I had done a deal of clambering about.  So I was glad, after all, to stay in the shade a while and rest my limbs.

Getting out through Arras turned out to be a ticklish business.  The Germans were verra wasteful o’ their shells that day, considering how much siller they cost!  They were pounding away, and more shells, by a good many, were falling in Arras than had been the case when we arrived at noon.  So I got a chance to see how the ruin that had been wrought had been accomplished.

Arras is a wonderful sight, noble and impressive even in its destruction.  But it was a sight that depressed me.  It had angered me, at first, but now I began to think, at each ruined house that I saw:  “Suppose this were at hame in Scotland!” And when such thoughts came to me I thanked God for the brave lads I had seen that day who stood, out here, holding the line, and so formed a bulwark between Scotland and such black ruin as this.