ment at the Paragon Music Hall--it must be
many and many a year agane. One evening I was going through the City
in my motor car--the old City, that echoes to the tread of the
business man by day, and at nicht is sae lane and quiet, wi' all the
folk awa'. The country is quiet at nicht, tae, but it's quiet in a
different way. For there the hum o' insects fills the air, and there's
the music o' a brook, and the wind rustling in the tops o' the trees,
wi' maybe a hare starting in the heather. It's the quiet o' life
that's i' the glen at nicht, but i' the auld, auld City the quiet is
the quiet o' death.

Weel, that nicht I was passing through Threadneedle street, hard by
the Bank of England, that great, grey building o' stane. And suddenly,
on the pavement, I saw them--twa young things, glad o' the stillness,
his arm aboot her waist, their een turned upon one another, thinking
o' nothing else and no one else i' a' the world.

I was sae sorry for them, puir weans! They had'na e'er ta'en a bit
walk by their twa selves in the purple gloaming. They knew nothing o'
the magic of a shady lane, wi' the branches o' old trees meeting over
their heads. When they wad be togither they had to flee tae some such
dead spot as this, or flaunt their love for one another in a busy
street, where all who would micht laugh at them, as folk ha' a way o'
doing, thoughtlessly, when they see the miracle o' young love, that is
sae old that it is always young.

And yet, I saw the lassie's een. I saw the way he looked at her. It
was for but a moment, as I passed. But I wasna sorry for them mair.
For the miracle was upon them. And in their een, dinna doot it, the
old, grey fronts o' the hooses were green trees. The pavement beneath
their feet was the saft dirt o' a country road, or the bonny grass.

City folk do long, I'm sure o' it, for the glen and the beauty o' the
countryside. Why else do they look as they do, and act as they do,
when I sing to them o' the same? And I've the memory of what many a
one has said to me, wi' tears in his een.

"Oh, Harry--ye brocht the auld hame to ma mind when ye sang o' roaming
in the gloaming! And--the wee hoose amang the heather!"

'Tis the hamely songs I gie 'em o' the country they aye love best, I
find. But why will they be content wi' what I bring them o' the glen
and the dell? Why will they no go back or oot, if they're city born,
and see for themselves? It's business holds some; others ha' other
reasons. B