They disputed a little about the way.  The blind man, puir laddie, thought he knew.  And he did not—­not quite.  But he corrected the man who could see but could not walk.

“It’s the wrong road you’re giving the gentleman,” he said.  “It’s the second turn he should be taking, not the first.”

And the other would not argue with him.  It was a kindly thing, the way he kept quiet, and did but wink at me, that I might know the truth.  He trusted me to understand and to know why he was acting as he was, and I blessed him in my heart for his thoughtfulness.  And so I thanked them, and passed on, and reached Mrs. Baird’s, and found a royal welcome there, and when they asked me if I would sing for the soldiers, and I said it was for that that I had come, there were tears in Mrs. Baird’s eyes.  And so I gave a wee concert there, and sang my songs, and did my best to cheer up those boys.

Ah, my puir, brave Scotland—­my bonnie little Scotland!

No part of all the United Kingdom, and, for that matter, no part of the world, has played a greater part, in proportion to its size and its ability, than has Scotland in this war for humanity against the black force that has attacked it.  Nearly a million men has Scotland sent to the army—­out of a total population of five million!  One in five of all her people have gone.  No country in the world has ever matched that record.  Ah, there were no slackers in Scotland!  And they are still going—­they are still going!  As fast as they are old enough, as fast as restrictions are removed, so that men are taken who were turned back at first by the recruiting officers, as fast as men see to it that some provision is made for those they must leave behind them, they are putting on the King’s uniform and going out against the Hun.  My country, my ain Scotland, is not great in area.  It is not a rich country in worldly goods or money.  But it is big with a bigness beyond measurement, it is rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, in patriotism, in love of country, and in bravery.

We have few young men left in Scotland.  It is rarely indeed that in a Scottish village, in a glen, even in a city, you see a young man in these days.  Only the very old are left, and the men of middle age.  And you know why the young men you see are there.  They cannot go, because, although their spirit is willing their flesh is too weak to let them go, for one reason or another.  Factory and field and forge—­ all have been stripped to fill the Scottish regiments and keep them at their full strength.  And in Scotland, as in England, women have stepped in to fill the places their men have left vacant.  This war is not to be fought by men alone.  Women have their part to play, and they are playing it nobly, day after day.  The women of Scotland have seen their duty; they have heard their country’s call, and they have answered it.