MARJORIE FLEMING

MARJORIE FLEMINGSir Walter Scott’s “Pet Marjorie”

Sir Walter Scott’s “Pet Marjorie”

Room now in our “rosebud garden of girls” for the dear little Scottish lassie, Marjorie Fleming. For more than a hundred years she has been sleeping under the plain white marble cross in the graveyard of Abbotshall. Above her is the record of her life in length of years—of which the ninth was not complete: Marjorie Fleming. Born 1803; died 1811. Then, on the plinth, the name by which Sir Walter’s love has made her famous: Pet Marjorie. And yet none of the little girls whose stories I have told you is so well remembered as nine-year-old Marjorie, and none of them has counted so many distinguished men of letters for her admirers. Sir Walter Scott is only the first of a long list of great writers who have loved the little maid, though he was the only one of them who heard her voice repeating his ballads, and carried her proudly on his shoulder to set her at the head of his supper-table as Queen of the Revels. But seventyyears after her death, Dr. John Brown (the Charles Lamb of Scotland) fell a victim to her fascinations, and wrote on her “the best book about a child that ever was written”; and when she was more than ninety years dead—she that had not lived nine—Mr. William Archer contributed a paper on her to thePall Mall Gazette; Mr. Leslie Stephen has written a sketch of her life for theDictionary of National Biography; while for the centenary of her birth (January 15, 1903) theStory of Pet Marjoriewas retold by L. MacBean.

What is the secret of her charm? I think it is this: that Marjorie is “a little child” in all the strange and beautiful connotation of the word. All the poetry Wordsworth has taught us to find in childhood goes to the making of Marjorie—with something more added:—

“Loving she is, and tractable, though mild,And Innocence hath privilege in herTo dignify arch looks and laughing eyes.”

“Loving she is, and tractable, though mild,

And Innocence hath privilege in her

To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes.”

The exquisite lines to six-year-old Hartley Coleridge might have been meant for her—

“whose fancies from afar were brought;Who of her words did make a mock apparel,And fitted to unutterable thoughtThe breeze-like motion and the self-born carol,”

“whose fancies from afar were brought;

Who of her words did make a mock apparel,

And fitted to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol,”

with a difference to make her dearer. The children in Wordsworth “trail their clouds of glory” in a region into which we may only gaze from afar. Too rare is the atmosphere for our breathing; and we look at them a little wistfully, from another plane, feeling ourselves shut out from their “solitude” which to them is “blithe society.” Of that enchanted region of childhood, Marjorie alone has tried to make us free. The thrill the mother feels when her little one takes her into her confidence is ours to feel when we read Marjorie’s three diaries. That, I think, is what makes her so inexpressibly dear.

In Kirkcaldy, in 1803, Marjorie was born of good stock both in the paternal and maternal line. A grandfather who had fought for “Bonnie Prince Charlie” at Culloden on the Fleming side, and a grandfather who had distinguished himself in surgery, on the Rae side, were fit progenitors for romantic and clever Marjorie. Her Highland descent is well justified; for Marjorie, humorous, vivid, impulsive, high-spirited, and generous is a Celt to her finger-tips. Her face, too, as shown in Isa Keith’s sketches, has the Celtic characteristics, especially the deep-set eyes, with their indications of thought and humour,and the funny little mouth that could, one feels, coax and pout equally well.

The Fleming nursery, when Marjorie made her first appearance in it, had already two occupants, five-year-old William and two-year-old Isabella. The presiding genius of the place was a certain Jeanie Robertson. Nurse Jeanie was very particular about teaching her young charges their Catechism, and Willie, at two years’ old, did her so much credit that she was fond of showing off her young theologian, for the benefit of some militia officers stationed in town. Jeanie put the questions in broad Scots, beginning with: “Wha made ye, ma bonnie man?” For the correctness of this, and the three next replies, Jeanie had no anxiety, but her tone changed to menace and her closed “nieve” (fist) was shaken in the child’s face as she demanded: “Of what are you made?” “Durrt” was the invariable reply, delivered in an uncompromising tone. Whereat Jeanie would cuff him, soundly. “Wull ye never learn to say ‘dust,’ ye thrawn deevil?”

Whether or not, it was from Jeanie that Marjorie learned to know so much about the “deevil” I cannot say. But, at all events, she had a very wholesome fear of him, mixedwith a certain interest in her methods. Cousin Isa, later on, taught her how to get the better of him (as she taught her so many other useful things, as, for instance, to make “simecolings, nots of interrigation, pearids and commas.”) She advised her: “When I feel Satan beginning to tempt me that I flee from him and he would flee from me.” But in the meantime there was a certain horrible fascination in thinking of him going about “like a roaring lyon in search of his pray,” and finding it in a little girl who “behaved extremely ill in God’s most holy church,” and “would never attande” herself “nor let Isabella attand,” or in a little girl “who stamped with her feet and threw her new hat on the ground” when Isabella brought her upstairs to teach her “religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other lessons.”

It was when Marjorie had just turned five that Cousin Isabella Keith engaged on the course of education thus comprehensively described. Isabella was hardly out of her teens herself, but to Marjorie she was the embodiment of all wisdom. “Isabella,” she says in the second journal, “teaches me everything I know, I am much indebted to her, she is learn, and witty and sensible.” Then in another place: “I hope that at 12or 13 years old I will be as learned as Miss Isa and Nancy Keith, for many girls have not the advantage I have, and I am very very glad that Satan has not given bols and many other misfortunes.” The reference to “bols,” it must be explained, was suggested by the story of Job, in whom Marjorie was much interested, feeling bound by their common enmity against the “Divel.” “It was the same Divel that tempted Job that tempted me, I am sure, but he resisted Satan, though he had boils and many many other misfortunes which I have escaped.”

Isabella Keith had come on a visit from her Edinburgh home to her aunt’s house at Kirkcaldy, and fell in love so deeply with her little cousin, that she begged to be allowed to take her back with her to Edinburgh to take charge of her education. The Flemings thought well of the plan, and in the summer of 1808 Marjorie left Kirkcaldy and went to live at her Aunt Keith’s house in No. 1, Charlotte-street, Edinburgh.

Young as she was, she had read all sorts of things before she had left home. She seems to have learned to read, as some children will, who grow up among books, almost unconsciously, and she made herself free of her father’s library in the most complete manner. Charles Lamb’s recipe forproducing “incomparable old maids” had been tried in her case with extraordinary results. Like “Cousin Bridget” inMackery End, “she was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage.” The plan may be all that Charles Lamb claims for producing “incomparable old maids,” but its effects on children are more questionable. Fortunately Marjorie seems to have got nothing worse from it than a vocabulary and stock of phrases that seem a little beyond her control, and a tremendous interest in romance, which cousin Isa has to keep in check. She is constantly losing her heart, now to “a sailer” who called here to say farewell; “it must be dreadful to leave his native country where he might get a wife and perhaps me, for I love him very much and with all my heart, but O I forgot Isabella forbid me to speak about love.” Again to Mr. Crakey, with whom she “walked to Crakyhall hand in hand in Innocence and metitation sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with majestick pleasure.” And yet again to “Philip Caddie, who paid no little attention to me, he took my hand and led medownstairs and shook my hand cordialy.” But indeed it was a very innocent kind of romance, and Cousin Isa need not have been alarmed, for Marjorie’s “own true love” was Cousin Isa herself. Indeed once she has got away from the jargon of books—Kotzebue’sPigeon and Fawny RachelandThe Cottage Cook, we hear no more of her as a “loveress” except it be of “swine, geese, cocks, and turkeys that made Ravelston so pleasant to me, indeed they are the delight of my heart.”

She had not been long in Edinburgh when she wrote to tell her sister all about it. The occasion was one of much solemnity, for, as she observes, “this is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my life.” In this letter she tells of the girls who play with her in the square, “and they cry just like a pig when we are under the painful necessity of putting it to death.” She draws a rather unflattering portrait of a certain Miss Potune, “a lady of my acquaintance,” and this in spite of the fact that “she praises me dreadfully.” “I repeated something out of Dean Swift, and she said I was fit for the stage, and you may think I was primmed up with majestick pride, but upon my word I felt myself turn a little birsay.” Perhaps she felt that Miss Potune was only trying toflatter her, just as she was doing with Aunt Keith. “This horrid fat simpliton says that my aunt is beautiful, which is entirely impossible, for that is not her nature.”

She returns again to the subject of Miss Potune in her diary, into which we shall now be privileged to peep.

“Miss Potune is very fat, she pretends to be very learned, she says she saw a stone that dropt from the skies, but she is a good Christian.” (The sequence of thought is not particularly apparent, but we begin to follow with more confidence in the next “lap,” starting with “Christian.”) “An annababtist is a thing I am not a member of; I am a Pisplikan just now and a Prisbeteren at Kercaldy, my native town, which though dirty is clein in the country; sentiment is what I am not acquainted with, though I wish it and should like to pratise it. I wish I had a great deal of gratitude in my heart and in all my body. The English have great power over the french; Ah me per adventure at this moment some noble Colnel at this moment sinks to the ground without breath; and in convulsive pangs dies; it is a melancholy consideration.”

Cousin Isabella had the little maid for a bedfellow, and we get some funny glimpsesof what she had to endure from that arrangement. “I’ve slept with Isabella, but she cannot sleep with me. I’m so very restless. I danced over her legs in the morning and she cried ‘Oh! dear, you mad girl, Madgie,’ for she was very sleepy.”—(Oh! those little “Early wide-awakes!” Which of us who have been wakened by them at four o’clock in the morning will not sympathise with poor Isa Keith?) “Every morn I awake before Isa, and oh I wish to be up and out with the larkies, but I must take care of Isa, who when aslipe is as beautiful as Viness and Jupiter in the sky.” On a later occasion Marjorie records: “I went into Isabella’s bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus, or the statute in ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that I awoke her from a very comfortable nap. All was now hushed up, but my anger again burst forth at her bidding me get up.” Finally poor Isabella, in self-defence against “continual figiting and kicking” had to banish Marjorie to the foot of the bed, an arrangement not without its advantages, for it gave a certain young person opportunity “to be continialy at work reading the Arabian nights entertainment, which I could not have done had I slept at the top.”The situation, moreover, inspired the following remarkable verses:—

“I love in Isa’s bed to lieO such a joy and luxuryThe bottom of the bed I sleepAnd with great care I myself keepOft I embrace her feet of lillysBut she has got on all the pilliesHer neck I never can embraceBut I do hug her feet in place.But I am sure I am contentedAnd of my follies am repentedI’m sure I’d rather beIn a small bed at liberty.”

“I love in Isa’s bed to lie

O such a joy and luxury

The bottom of the bed I sleep

And with great care I myself keep

Oft I embrace her feet of lillys

But she has got on all the pillies

Her neck I never can embrace

But I do hug her feet in place.

But I am sure I am contented

And of my follies am repented

I’m sure I’d rather be

In a small bed at liberty.”

Isabella would seem to have restored her soon again, however, for we learn from a later poem:—

“When cold as clay when cold as iceTo get into a bed tis niceIt is a nice thing for to creepBut not to dose away and sleepInto a bed where Isa liesAnd to my questions she repliesCorrects my faults improves my mindAnd tells me of the faults she findBut she is sound asleep sometimesFor that I have not got good rimesBut when awake I her teize muchAnd she doth squall at every touchThen Isa reads in bed aloneAnd reads the fasts by good NelsonThen I get up to say my prayersTo get my porridge and go downstairs.”

“When cold as clay when cold as ice

To get into a bed tis nice

It is a nice thing for to creep

But not to dose away and sleep

Into a bed where Isa lies

And to my questions she replies

Corrects my faults improves my mind

And tells me of the faults she find

But she is sound asleep sometimes

For that I have not got good rimes

But when awake I her teize much

And she doth squall at every touch

Then Isa reads in bed alone

And reads the fasts by good Nelson

Then I get up to say my prayers

To get my porridge and go downstairs.”

If Marjorie’s journal ranges in its discussion of subjects literally from “Shakespeare” (or, as she calls him, “Shakepear,” “of which I have a little knolege of,” thus summed up: “Macbeth is a pretty compisition but awful one Macbeth is so bad and wicked, but Lady Macbeth is so hardened in guilt she does not mind her faults and sins no,”) to the “Musical Glasses” (Nancy’s and Isabella’s uncle has got musical glasses and the sound of them is exceedingly sweet), her poetry is equally universal in its range. From the “Ephibol on my Dear Love Isabella,” composed when the poetess was six, to loyal verses on the King’s Birthday:—

“Poor man his health is very badAnd he is often very mad,”

“Poor man his health is very bad

And he is often very mad,”

and the Chef d’Oeuvre on “Mary Queen of Scots” we have a wide selection:—

“Poor Mary Queen of Scots was bornWith all the graces which adornHer birthday is so very lateThat I do now forget the dateHer education was in franceThere she did learn to sing and danceThere she was married to the dauphinBut soon he was laid in the coffin,”

“Poor Mary Queen of Scots was born

With all the graces which adorn

Her birthday is so very late

That I do now forget the date

Her education was in france

There she did learn to sing and dance

There she was married to the dauphin

But soon he was laid in the coffin,”

and so on through the whole romantic and tragic story to the end at Fotheringay. Nay,even beyond it, goes our poet historian, lured on by her sense of poetical justice against Queen Elizabeth:

“Elizabeth was a cross old maidNow when her youth began to fadeHer temper was worce then beforeAnd people did not her adoreBut Mary was much loved by allBoth by the great and by the smallBut hark her soul to heaven did riseAnd I do think she gained a prizeFor I do think she would not goInto the awfull place belowThere is a thing that I must tellElizabeth went to fire and hellHim who will teach her to be cevelIt must be her great friend the divel.”

“Elizabeth was a cross old maid

Now when her youth began to fade

Her temper was worce then before

And people did not her adore

But Mary was much loved by all

Both by the great and by the small

But hark her soul to heaven did rise

And I do think she gained a prize

For I do think she would not go

Into the awfull place below

There is a thing that I must tell

Elizabeth went to fire and hell

Him who will teach her to be cevel

It must be her great friend the divel.”

It is very consoling to know that Marjorie did not think any the worse of beautiful Queen Mary for being a Catholic:

“She was a Roman Catholic strongNor did she think that it was wrong.”

“She was a Roman Catholic strong

Nor did she think that it was wrong.”

Perhaps the fact that she herself was a “Pisplikan just now and a Prisbeteren at Kercaldy, my native town, which though dirty is clein in the country,” made her more tolerant than others of her nation:

“For they her faith could not well bearAnd to upbraid her they would dare.”

“For they her faith could not well bear

And to upbraid her they would dare.”

Marjorie did not always keep to these “Epic Heights.” Her muse is sometimes occupied with such subjects as the death of three young turkeys eaten by the rats, the elopement of Jessy Watson the servant maid, and her aunt’s monkey:

“There is a thing I love to seeThat is our monkey catch a flee.”

“There is a thing I love to see

That is our monkey catch a flee.”

Indeed her latest biographer opines that the lament for the three turkeys will become the most famous of Marjorie’s poems:

“Three turkeys fair their last have breathedAnd now this world for ever leavedTheir father and their mother tooWill sigh and weep as well as youMourning for their osprings fairWhom they did nurse with tender careIndeed the rats their bones have cranchedTo eternity are they launchedThere graceful form and pretty eyesTheir fellow fowls did not despiseA direful death indeed they hadThat would put any parent madBut she was more than usual calmShe did not give a single dam[19]She is as gentel as a lambHere ends this melancholy layFarewell poor Turkeys I must say.”

“Three turkeys fair their last have breathed

And now this world for ever leaved

Their father and their mother too

Will sigh and weep as well as you

Mourning for their osprings fair

Whom they did nurse with tender care

Indeed the rats their bones have cranched

To eternity are they launched

There graceful form and pretty eyes

Their fellow fowls did not despise

A direful death indeed they had

That would put any parent mad

But she was more than usual calm

She did not give a single dam[19]

She is as gentel as a lamb

Here ends this melancholy lay

Farewell poor Turkeys I must say.”

This “melancholy lay” was addressed to the owner of the turkeys, Mrs. Crawfurd, of Braehead—a “delightfull place” in Marjorie’s opinion. “Now I am quite happy,” she records on the eve of a visit there, “for I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by name, belonging to Mrs. Craford, where there is ducks, cocks, hens, bubbyjocks, 2 dogs, 2 cats and swine, which is delightful.”

The visit had its disappointments. First in the matter of the weather: “I came here as I thought to enjoy nature’s delightful breath, it is sweeter than a fial of rose oil, but Alas my hopes are dissopointed, it is always spitring, but then I often get a blink and then I am happy.” Moreover Marjorie’s and Job’s old enemy (and Elizabeth’s “great friend”) was particularly busy at this time, and we have a constant record of ill behaviour. “To-day I affronted myself before Miss Margaret and Miss Isa Craford and Mrs. Craford and Mrs. Kermical, which was very nauty, but I hope there will be no more evil in all my journal.” Alas for good intentions! Behold what happened a few days after. “I am going to telle you that in all my life I never behaved so ill, for when Isa bid me go out of the room I would not go, and when Isa came to the room Ithrew my book at her in a dreadful passion and she did not lick me but said ‘Go into the room and pray,’ and I did it. I will never do it again. I hope that I will never afront Isa, for she said she was never so afronted in her life, but I hope it will never happen again.”

“I am going to turn over a new life and am going to be a very good girl and be obedient to Isa Keith, here there is plenty of goosberrys which makes my teath water....

“My religion is greatly falling off because I don’t pray with so much attention when I am saying my prayers and my character is lost away a-mong the Braehead people. I hope I will be religious again, but as for regaining my character I despare for it.... Everybody just now hates me and I deserve it, for I don’t behave well.”

In spite of her unfortunate experiences at Braehead, she was very anxious to return to it, and upbraided Isa in verse, on another occasion, when their visit, she learned, was only to be two days long:

“Beautious Isabella sayHow long at braehead will you stayO for a week or not so longThen weel desart the busy throngAh can you see me sorrow soAnd drop a hint that you must goI thought you had a better hartThan make me with my dear friends partBut now I see that you have notAnd that you mock my dreadful lotMy health is always bad and soreAnd you have hurt it a deal more.”

“Beautious Isabella say

How long at braehead will you stay

O for a week or not so long

Then weel desart the busy throng

Ah can you see me sorrow so

And drop a hint that you must go

I thought you had a better hart

Than make me with my dear friends part

But now I see that you have not

And that you mock my dreadful lot

My health is always bad and sore

And you have hurt it a deal more.”

“The reason I wrote this poem is because I am going to Braehead only two days.”

No wonder she loved Braehead: “Here at Braehead I enjoy rurel felisity to perfection, content, retirement, rurel friendship, books all these dwell here, but I am not sure of ease and alternate labour useful life.” At Braehead even prose must take the colour of poetry from waving trees and morning sunbeams:

“In the morning the first thing I see is most beautiful trees spreading their luxurant branches between the Horison and me....

“I love to see the morning sun that rise so long before the moon ... the moon that casts her silver light when the Horison sinks beneath the clouds and scateres its light on the surface of the earth.”

Another place where Marjorie dearly loved to go visiting was Ravelston House: “Ravelston is a fine place, because I get balm wine and many other dainties, and itis extremely pleasant to me by the company of swine, geese, cocks, etc., and they are the delight of my heart.”

Whether at home in Edinburgh, or in Braehead, or Ravelston, Isabella continues the education of her little charge: “I am thinking,” says Marjorie, in a serious Sunday mood, “how I shall improve the many talents I have. I am sorry I have threwn them away, it is shocking to think of it when many have not the instruction. I have, because Isabella teaches me to or three hours every day in reading and writing and arethmatick and many other things and religion into the bargain. On Sundays she teaches me to be virtuous.” Saturday was a half-holiday—even from virtue! “This is Saturday, and I am very glad of it, because I have play half of the day and I get money too, but alas I owe Isabella fourpence, for I am fined 2 pence whenever I bite my nails.”

On another Saturday we hear of her having “sauntered about the woulds and by the burn side and dirtied myselfe, which puts me in mind of a song my mother composed. It was that she was out and dirtied herselfe, which is like me.”

Poor Isabella did not always have an easy task. The “multiplication table”gave particular trouble. “I am now going to tell you about the horible and wretched plaege that my multiplication gives me you can’t conceive it—the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7; it is what nature itself can’t endure....” Sometimes the Devil gets out of the “multiplication table” and comes even near more sacred ground. “To-day I have been very ungrateful and bad and disobedient, Isabella gave me my writing, I wrote so ill that she took it away and locked it up in her desk where I stood trying to open it till she made me come and read my bible, but I was in a bad homour and red it so carelessly and ill that she took it from me and her blood ran cold, but she never punished me, she is as gental as a lamb to me an ungrateful girl.”

Isabella tries the effect of praise:—

“Isabella has given me praise for checking my temper, for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole hour teaching me to write.”

But Marjorie is honest enough to think a whipping would do herself good: “But she never whipes me, so that I thinke I should be the better of it, and the next time that I behave ill, I think she should do it, for she never does it, but she is very indulgent to me, but I am very ungrateful to her.”

It may have been at Ravelston (where “I am enjoying nature’s fresh air, the birds are singing sweetly, the calf doth frisk and play, and nature shows her glorious face, the sun shines through the trees”) that Marjorie first saw and conquered Sir Walter. For all readers ofWaverleywill remember how deeply its author loved the old house and garden, where he had played as a boy. The conquest was completed when Marjorie returned to Edinburgh, and by all accounts it was not her beauty that worked the charm. As Marjorie herself says, “I am very strong and robust and not of the delicate sex, nor of the fair, but of the deficient in looks,” and poor Isa Keith is quite concerned about her plainness: “She is grown excessively fat and strong,” she writes about this time to Kirkcaldy, “but I cannot say she is in great beauty, as she has lost two front teeth, and her continued propensity to laugh exhibits the defect rather strongly.” But in the eyes of Sir Walter, she was better than beautiful: “She’s the most extraordinary creature I ever met with,” he told Mrs. Keith, “and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does.”

Dr. Brown draws some charming pictures of the great man and the little childtogether, Marjorie teaching him nursery rhymes:—“He used to say when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down. Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um, Tweedle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky Dan especially was beyond his endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill behaviour and stupidity. Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement overGil Morriceor theBaron of Smailholm, and he would take her on his knees and make her repeat Constance’s speeches inKing Johntill he swayed to and fro sobbing his fill.”

The year before she died she was at a Twelfth Night Supper at Scott’s in Castlestreet. The company had all come—all but Marjorie; and all were dull because Scott was dull. “Where’s that bairn? What can have come over her? I’ll go myself and see!” And he was getting up, and would have gone, when the bell rang, and in came Duncan Roy and his henchman Dougal, with the Sedan chair which was brought right into the lobby and its top raised. And there in its darkness and dingy old cloth sat Maidie in white, her eyes gleaming,and Scott bending over her in ecstacy. “Sit ye there, my dautie, till they all see you,” and forthwith he brought them all. You can fancy the scene. And he lifted her up and marched to his seat with her on his stout shoulder, and set her down beside him; and then began the night, and such a night! Those who knew Scott best said that night was never equalled. Maidie and he were the stars; and she gave them Constance’s speeches, and Helvellyn, and all her repertoire, Scott showing her off, and being oftimes rebuked by her for his intentional blunders.

Perhaps the prudent mother at home in Kirkcaldy began to fear the effects of all this notoriety and excitement on her little daughter’s character. At all events she did not leave her in Edinburgh very many months after this. In July, 1811, Marjorie bade good-bye to her darling Isabella and returned to Kirkcaldy.

We have letters of hers, mainly to Isa, to fill up the simple story of the next few months. In one of them, she refers to an epidemic of measles. Little did Isabella think, as she laughed over the quaint phrases, that there was something ominous in it. In November Marjorie herself fell avictim to the epidemic, and was very ill for many weeks.

It was a strange Maidie even to those who knew her best that developed in this illness—a very patient, submissive, and quiet Maidie, who liked best to lie still and think. One day as she was lying very still her mother asked her if there was anything she wished. “Oh, yes. If you would just leave the room door open a wee bit, and play the ‘Land o’ the Leal,’ and I will lie and think and enjoy myself.”

On Sunday, the 15th December, she was allowed to be up for a little while, and her sister thus describes the scene.

“It was Sabbath evening, and after tea my father, who idolized the child, and never afterwards in my hearing mentioned her name, took her in his arms; and while walking up and down the room, she said: ‘Father, I will repeat something to you: what would you like?’ He said ‘Just choose yourself, Maidie.’ She hesitated for a moment, between the paraphrase ‘Few are Thy Days and Full of Woe,’ and the lines of Burns, ‘Why I am loth to leave this Earthly Scene?’” but chose the latter.

That was the last earthly scene for poor little Maidie. Six days later, they laid her to rest in the churchyard of Abbotshall.

FOOTNOTES[1]Echlasc = horse-rod, with a goad at the end of it.[2]Cuchairi = “trappers.”[3]Immdorus = door-porch.[4]Feici = ridge-pole.[5]House of Manuscripts.[6]Walther von der Vogelweide, a celebrated Middle High German lyrical poet.[7]Wolfram von Eschenbach, Middle High German epic poet.[8]Watch-tower.[9]1425.[10]A poem by Prudentius.[11]A collection of fables.[12]Gianfrancesco Gonzaga was made Marquis of Mantua on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor Sigismund in 1433.[13]The great codex of the Ptolemian System of the Universe.[14]The residences of the smaller landed gentry in France, of the old Régime, were called “noblesses” or “gentilhommières.”[15]These were at the end of the garden.[16]One of the lay-sisters.[17]“If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?”[18]A book of riddles.[19]I am afraid Marjorie’s language is sometimes very “shoking” and poor cousin Isa has her own troubles getting her to conform to a more “ladylike” standard in the matter. “To-day,” she confesses on one occasion, “I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady’s lips, but Isabella kindly forgave me because I said I would not do it again. I will tell you what I think made me in so bad a humour is I got 1 or 2 cups of that bad bad sina tea to Day.”

FOOTNOTES

[1]Echlasc = horse-rod, with a goad at the end of it.

[2]Cuchairi = “trappers.”

[3]Immdorus = door-porch.

[4]Feici = ridge-pole.

[5]House of Manuscripts.

[6]Walther von der Vogelweide, a celebrated Middle High German lyrical poet.

[7]Wolfram von Eschenbach, Middle High German epic poet.

[8]Watch-tower.

[9]1425.

[10]A poem by Prudentius.

[11]A collection of fables.

[12]Gianfrancesco Gonzaga was made Marquis of Mantua on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor Sigismund in 1433.

[13]The great codex of the Ptolemian System of the Universe.

[14]The residences of the smaller landed gentry in France, of the old Régime, were called “noblesses” or “gentilhommières.”

[15]These were at the end of the garden.

[16]One of the lay-sisters.

[17]“If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?”

[18]A book of riddles.

[19]I am afraid Marjorie’s language is sometimes very “shoking” and poor cousin Isa has her own troubles getting her to conform to a more “ladylike” standard in the matter. “To-day,” she confesses on one occasion, “I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady’s lips, but Isabella kindly forgave me because I said I would not do it again. I will tell you what I think made me in so bad a humour is I got 1 or 2 cups of that bad bad sina tea to Day.”

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