CHAPTER XVII
"THE SWAP O' RHYMING WARE"
The day following this event I was called into the Mearns to look after some property which by reason of an entail had been thrust into my hands. Nancy had planned to accompany me, but the post brought her news that a German cousin of royalty, who was making a tour of the country, was intending a visit to the lace-making place on the Burnside, and Father Michel's word being for her presence at Stair, she gave over the trip, and watched me set off with Hugh Pitcairn, a bit saddened, I thought, at the pleasure of the jaunt being taken from her.
"A fine lassie!" Hugh said, looking back at her from the coach window, "who will do what's right, as she sees it, whether she gains or loses by it herself. A woman whose word can be believed as another's oath; who has a thought for the general good, apart from her own emotions; with something of the old Roman in her sense of justice. Ah," he went on in his egotism, "she shows training. All women should be taught the law—something might be made of them then."
I was employed in looking over some unread mail which I had with me while Hugh was laying these flattering unctions to his soul, and came at this point upon a letter from one Hastings, an American from the village of Boston in North America, offering in a kind sure way to marry my daughter Nancy if he could have my consent. He was a flat-faced, bigoted Anglo-Saxon, and a creature seemingly designed to drive a woman of any wideness of judgment into a frenzy, and I grinned with delight as I handed the letter to Hugh for his perusal.
He read it stolidly and returned it to me, uncommented upon, but further down the road I could see he was turning Nancy's affairs over in his mind, for he broke out, with some disjointedness:
"I have always held it a wise arrangement of nature to make women of notable mentality of a dry and unseductive nature, and pretty women fools; for if one person held beauty and charm as well as power and grasp, there is no telling but she could overthrow governments and work a wide and general mischief. We've much to thank God for," he continued, "that Nancy Stair is as she is."
The third day of my stay at Alton I received a special post which put me into some fret of mind. The letter was from Nancy, and is set below entire:
"My very Dearest:"I miss you and am lonesome; for the lady is not coming about the lace-making, although she sent a command for many pounds' worth of work, and Father Michel is much pleasured by that."I have just had a letter from Janet McGillavorich. 'Seeing that ye write,' she says, 'ye may be interested in a plowman-poet that we have down here, whose name has made some noise in this part of the country. His name is Burns, an Ayr man, and the gentry are a' makin' much of him. Well, any time ye've the fancy, ye can look out of the spence window and see heedless Rab Burns, his eyes a-shine like twa stars, coming over the braeside, drunk as a laird, roaring out, 'How are thy servants, blessed, O Lord,' having spent the night Gude alane kens wheer. God kens and most of the neighbors, too, when you come to think about it, for the lad has a Biblical shamelessness for his misdeeds, and what he forgets to tell himself (and that's little enough) he goes home and writes out for all the parish to read. So if ye'd like a crack wi' him, just come right down, now your father's left ye, and I'll have him till dinner with you, and you can bob at each ither to your heart's content.'"Isn't it strange, Jock, that a thing I have wanted so long should just happen by, as it were? And so I'm off for Mauchline to-morrow, with Dickenson, whose silence bespeaks a shrewish disapproval, and will write how Mr. Burns and I get on at some soon date."Give my love to Mr. Pitcairn, and tell him the prints are full of his new book."Danvers Carmichael has not been here since the time you know of, and the Duke of Borthwicke is on some sudden business to the Highlands."With my heart held in my hands toward you,"Your own child,Signed: Nancy Stair
"My very Dearest:
"I miss you and am lonesome; for the lady is not coming about the lace-making, although she sent a command for many pounds' worth of work, and Father Michel is much pleasured by that.
"I have just had a letter from Janet McGillavorich. 'Seeing that ye write,' she says, 'ye may be interested in a plowman-poet that we have down here, whose name has made some noise in this part of the country. His name is Burns, an Ayr man, and the gentry are a' makin' much of him. Well, any time ye've the fancy, ye can look out of the spence window and see heedless Rab Burns, his eyes a-shine like twa stars, coming over the braeside, drunk as a laird, roaring out, 'How are thy servants, blessed, O Lord,' having spent the night Gude alane kens wheer. God kens and most of the neighbors, too, when you come to think about it, for the lad has a Biblical shamelessness for his misdeeds, and what he forgets to tell himself (and that's little enough) he goes home and writes out for all the parish to read. So if ye'd like a crack wi' him, just come right down, now your father's left ye, and I'll have him till dinner with you, and you can bob at each ither to your heart's content.'
"Isn't it strange, Jock, that a thing I have wanted so long should just happen by, as it were? And so I'm off for Mauchline to-morrow, with Dickenson, whose silence bespeaks a shrewish disapproval, and will write how Mr. Burns and I get on at some soon date.
"Give my love to Mr. Pitcairn, and tell him the prints are full of his new book.
"Danvers Carmichael has not been here since the time you know of, and the Duke of Borthwicke is on some sudden business to the Highlands.
"With my heart held in my hands toward you,
"Your own child,
Signed: Nancy Stair
In a green tabby velvet, laced with silver, and a huge feathered hat, Nancy set out from Stair about eight in the morning with Dame Dickenson in the Stair coach, driven by Patsy MacColl. By a change of horse at Balregal, she arrived at Mauchline just as the lamp-lighter was going his rounds, and the coach was turning by the manse when a serving-man, evidently heavy with the business, came toward the vehicle, signalling.
"Are ye for Mrs. McGillavorich?" cries he.
"Ay," Patsy answered.
"Well, I'm put here to tell ye that her house fell into the cellar of itself the morn, and she's at the 'King's Arms,' where 'tis her wish your young lady should be fetched at once."
Amazed at this sudden announcement, Patsy drove a short distance farther, where, as directed by the stranger, he stopped before a small two-story dwelling, unpretentious, but exceedingly clean and respectable in appearance, where Mrs. Todd, the landlady, showed Nancy into the living room.
It was a quaint old chamber, with wooden walls, beamed ceiling and a great stone fireplace, the lugs coming out on each side to form a seat, with candles lighted in a row upon the mantel-shelf. There was a spinet in one corner; a set of shelves filled with shining cups and saucers between the low white-curtained windows; while a fire from huge logs filled the chimney place and threw a dancing light over the polished floor, half hidden by a thick home-spun carpet, and as was the custom of the time, lighted candles had been set between the drawn white curtains to guide any uncertain traveller to his destination.
When Nancy entered, blinded by the sudden light, it was her thought that the apartment was empty, but here the devil had taken his throw in the game, for sitting in the far corner at a small table, with a jug and writing materials between them, were two men, the darker of whom would every little while scribble something off, handing that which he had written to the other, who would roar aloud and clap him on the shoulder, and both would drink again.
Nancy stood irresolute before the fire, not knowing what to do, when the darker man came forward from his place, as though to offer assistance, but at sight of her he drew back in amazement, and as Mrs. Todd bustled into the room at the moment, with many courtesies, to escort her up to Mrs. McGillavorich, no word passed between the two; but the man stood watching after her as she ascended the winding stairs.
"We're in a frightful state, my dear," Mrs. McGillavorich cried to her from the landing. "A frightful state. But the house went down too late to let ye know that for your own comfort ye'd best stay at home. We'll make ourselves comfortable here; and I've ordered a chicken pie for you, which is browned to a turn, and a jelly stir-about; and this evening we'll have a merry time, for they say Burns is in the house this instant."
"Ah," she went on, peering from the window, "ye got here just in the nick of time; for the wind's roaring from the west, and when a storm comes from that direction it's like to set by us for a long time."
After the supper, served in her own apartment, was by with, the strange old lady went on:
"And now we'll go down to the spence, where ye can meet Mr. Burns. And because your father's a kent man in these parts and your own name sounding through the country as well, I'll give out that ye're my niece, and it's in that way ye can be known."
So, attended by Dickenson, carrying her many wraps and comforters, with Nancy following, Mrs. McGillavorich entered upon Burns and his companion, whom they found drinking and writing exactly as Nancy had left them.
"I'd like to make you known to my niece, Miss McGillavorich," said Mrs. Janet, advancing toward him. "From Edinburgh," she added.
He threw a hasty unconvinced glance at Nancy, but bowed low as one used to gentle ways.
"I am new come from Edinburgh myself," he said, after presenting his friend, whom he named Mr. Hamilton. "It's a braw town. Have ye lived there long?" he asked.
"Some years," Nancy answered; "although I was not born there."
"There are fine country places all about it, too," he continued, "out the Pentland way."
"Yes," she answered; "I've seen them."
"And do you know many people in the city? I've met in with some notable folk on my sojourn there. The Monboddos, the Glencairns, and the Gordons are grand people."
"I've heard their names," Nancy returned, in a non-committal way.
"They've been kind to me," he went on, with a bit of conceit in his manner, "most kind. The ladies especially," he added.
"So?" said Nancy. "That must be very comforting to you," she added, with a twinkle in her eye.
"It is," was the unexpected answer, given with a droll look. "And I like to hear them sing my songs. Have ye heard Bonnie Dundee? It's not printed yet."
"No," she answered, "but I could catch it. I sing a little. Could ye sooth it to me, Mr. Burns?"
"Nay, nay," said Janet, "no music or singing yet; not till Mr. Burns has given us something of his own. We'll have Dickenson brew us a bowl of lemon punch, and we'll draw the curtains and gather the fire, and Mr. Burns will line us the Cotter's Saturday Night, the sensiblest thing writ for a long time, before ye sing us a song, my dear."
And the old lady being set, there was nothing to do but to abide her way of it; and thus by the fire, with the elements raising a din outside, the five of them listened to the great man, who was not too great, however, to turn the whole battery of his compelling personality upon Nancy Stair, nor to look at her from the uplifted region in which he dwelt during the recital to see what effect he had upon her, for he had already learned "his power over ladies of quality."
God knows if any of those, even Burns himself, who were gathered about the fire that night dreamed that, as I believe now, those lines would echo down the ages, nor that the time was coming when that evening might be a thing to boast upon and hand the memory of to children and to children's children as a precious heirloom:
"November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh:The shortening winter-day is at its close;The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,The black'ning trains o'craws to their repose:——"
"November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh:The shortening winter-day is at its close;The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,The black'ning trains o'craws to their repose:——"
"November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh:
The shortening winter-day is at its close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,
The black'ning trains o'craws to their repose:——"
And at the end, fed perhaps by the adulation of their faces, as well as their spoken words, he laid some open flattery to himself upon the way he'd been received in town and at the noise his name was making there at the time, and stirred Nancy's sense of humor, which, Heaven is a witness, needed little to move it at any time.
"A'weel, a'weel," she said at length, "I make verses myself, Mr. Burns."
"Say you so!" he cried; "and that's a surprise to me! Would you word us one of your poems?" he asked, laughingly.
"I sing mine," she says, going over to the spinet.
"And that's finer still!" he cried.
"They're not like yours," an apology in her voice; "just off-hand rhymes like, that come to my head on the moment. If you could sooth me Bonnie Dundee now, I might rhyme something to it," and the minute he began, she said:
"Oh! I know that—'tis an old tune, like this"—and striking a chord or two, she was off before the rest had any guess of her intention, with a merry devil in her eye and her face glowing like a flower in the firelight:
"At 'The King's Arms' in Mauchline, Rab Burns said to me,'I'm just back from Edinbro' as you may see,Where all the gay world has been bowin' to me,For I am the lad who wroteBonnie Dundee!And just for a smile or a glance of my eyeThe lassies are ready to lie down and die;So don't give yourself airs, but just bow before me,For I am the lad who wroteBonnie Dundee!'"Now a'weel, Mr. Burns, I have somewhat to sayI've sweethearts as many as you any day;And I've eyes of my own, as you've noticed, maybe,If you've glanced from the author ofBonnie Dundee!And Duncan of Monteith my suitor has been,And Stewart of MacBride's, who has served to the Queen.And if any one bows, it will sure not be me,For I don't give a groat who wroteBonnie Dundee!"
"At 'The King's Arms' in Mauchline, Rab Burns said to me,'I'm just back from Edinbro' as you may see,Where all the gay world has been bowin' to me,For I am the lad who wroteBonnie Dundee!And just for a smile or a glance of my eyeThe lassies are ready to lie down and die;So don't give yourself airs, but just bow before me,For I am the lad who wroteBonnie Dundee!'
"At 'The King's Arms' in Mauchline, Rab Burns said to me,
'I'm just back from Edinbro' as you may see,
Where all the gay world has been bowin' to me,
For I am the lad who wroteBonnie Dundee!
And just for a smile or a glance of my eye
The lassies are ready to lie down and die;
So don't give yourself airs, but just bow before me,
For I am the lad who wroteBonnie Dundee!'
"Now a'weel, Mr. Burns, I have somewhat to sayI've sweethearts as many as you any day;And I've eyes of my own, as you've noticed, maybe,If you've glanced from the author ofBonnie Dundee!And Duncan of Monteith my suitor has been,And Stewart of MacBride's, who has served to the Queen.And if any one bows, it will sure not be me,For I don't give a groat who wroteBonnie Dundee!"
"Now a'weel, Mr. Burns, I have somewhat to say
I've sweethearts as many as you any day;
And I've eyes of my own, as you've noticed, maybe,
If you've glanced from the author ofBonnie Dundee!
And Duncan of Monteith my suitor has been,
And Stewart of MacBride's, who has served to the Queen.
And if any one bows, it will sure not be me,
For I don't give a groat who wroteBonnie Dundee!"
The laugh which followed this found Burns at her side, every passion in his inflammable nature alight.
"Aye," he cried, "ye have the verse makin'. But the e's are easy. Why didn't ye try the Doon. 'Tis as celebrate."
"Sure," she answered, "there are rhymes begging for that. Tune, soon, rune, June——"
"And loon," Burns threw in, daffing with her. "Ye wouldn't be forgetting that."
"It was not my intention to be leaving the author of the piece out of it," she threw back at him, laughing, at which Burns gave her a look.
"You'd better mend your manners," he cried, gaily, "or some day I'll take my pen in hand to you, andthen, may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" adding low, "Mistress Nancy Stair!"
Some consternation followed upon this, for it was unknown by any of them that he had seen Nancy in Edinbro', and after the talk was readjusted a bit to the news, the five of them, with Mrs. Todd listening on the other side of the door, sat till hard upon one o'clock, with uplifted minds, insensible to time or weather.
The extreme disorder caused by the wind, for the storm had risen, at length recalled them to themselves, and Mrs. Todd, who worshiped the great poet, came in.
"You must lie here to-night, Mr. Burns," she said hospitably; and as the poet lighted Nancy up the stair:
"Good night," he cried, "good night!" and then, because there was a devil in the man whenever he looked at a pretty woman, "I'll have no sleep to-night. I'm in some far-up region where poems are made and where all the women are like you!"
For three days the horrid weather kept them housebound; three days in which Nancy and Robert Burns lived in dangerous nearness to each other, considering her youth, her temperament, and the passion of admiration which she held for him; three days of poetry and folk-tales and ballad-singing, with the man's dangerous magnetism at work between them.
It was on the afternoon of this third day that a girl passed the window near which Burns sat, and beckoning to him, he slammed out into the storm, with no prefacing word to his act whatever, leaving Nancy staring after him in amazement, as she said to Mr. Hamilton:
"Do you not think his manners are strange?"
"The Edinburgh people say that he had them straight from his Maker," Mr. Hamilton answered, evading an opinion of his own.
"It's no saying much for the breeding of the Almighty," she answered, off-hand, with a smile, and she held silence concerning the matter, although it was near upon four days before Burns entered the inn door again, his face pale and haggard, his eyes sunken, and lines of dissipation upon his handsome face, which every one by courtesy passed over uncommented. He brought a volume of Shenstone with him, which he laid before Nancy as a gift.
"I am bringing you one of the great of the earth," he said, gloomily regarding the book, and Nancy, who read his thoughts and wanted from the heart to cheer him, said:
"I whiles wonder at you, Mr. Burns, and the way you go about admiring every tinker-peddler who tosses a rhyme together. Ye've no sense of your own value at times. Do you know," she went on, fair glorious to see in her enthusiasm glowering down at him—"Do you know that when this man Shenstone's grave is as flat to the earth as my hand, and his name forgot, people will be building monuments to you and raising schools for your memory. Why," she cried, in an ecstasy, "'tis you that have made our old mother Scotland able to hold up her head and look the whole world in the face when the word 'Poetry' is called."
"Ye think so?" he asked, the tears big in his eyes, his gloom put behind him. "It's music to hear ye praise me so," and he rose and leaned against the mantel-shelf, his face irradiated by its usual expression.
"Perhaps," he began with some hope, "when I say farewell to rakery once and for all, I may make something fine yet. Most men, Mistress Stair, shake hands with that irresponsible wench called Pleasure, but I have dallied too long, I fear, in her intoxicating society. Aye!" he finished, "Wisdom's late upon the road!"5
"Let's make a poem of it! It sounds like one!" she cried, moving toward the spinet.
"Take your own gate," says Burns, laughing; "I'll follow!"
"I'll take the first lines," she said gayly. "'Twill throw the brunt of the rhyming on you."
"You're o'er thoughtful," Burns laughed back at her, and Nancy began rhyming to an old tune the thought they had passed between them, with Burns ready with his rhymes before her lines were entirely spoken:
Nancy
"At break o' day, one morn o' May,While dew lay silverin' all the lea";
"At break o' day, one morn o' May,While dew lay silverin' all the lea";
"At break o' day, one morn o' May,
While dew lay silverin' all the lea";
Burns
"A lassie fair, wi' gowden hairCame laughing up the glen to me."
"A lassie fair, wi' gowden hairCame laughing up the glen to me."
"A lassie fair, wi' gowden hair
Came laughing up the glen to me."
Nancy
"Her face was like the hawthorn bloom,Her eyes twa violets in a mist,"
"Her face was like the hawthorn bloom,Her eyes twa violets in a mist,"
"Her face was like the hawthorn bloom,
Her eyes twa violets in a mist,"
Burns
"Her lips were roses of the June,The sweetest lip's that e'er were kissed."
"Her lips were roses of the June,The sweetest lip's that e'er were kissed."
"Her lips were roses of the June,
The sweetest lip's that e'er were kissed."
Nancy
"'O, what's your name and where's your hame?My sweetest lassie, tell me true.'"
"'O, what's your name and where's your hame?My sweetest lassie, tell me true.'"
"'O, what's your name and where's your hame?
My sweetest lassie, tell me true.'"
Burns
"'My name is Pleasure,' sir, she said,'And I hae come to live with you.'"
"'My name is Pleasure,' sir, she said,'And I hae come to live with you.'"
"'My name is Pleasure,' sir, she said,
'And I hae come to live with you.'"
Nancy
"She took my face between her hands,And sat her down upon my knee."
"She took my face between her hands,And sat her down upon my knee."
"She took my face between her hands,
And sat her down upon my knee."
Burns
"She put her glowing lips to mine,And oh, but life was sweet to me."
"She put her glowing lips to mine,And oh, but life was sweet to me."
"She put her glowing lips to mine,
And oh, but life was sweet to me."
Nancy
"Wi' mony a song we roved alongMy arm all warm about her waist."
"Wi' mony a song we roved alongMy arm all warm about her waist."
"Wi' mony a song we roved along
My arm all warm about her waist."
Burns
"The hours drunk wi' love's golden wineUnheeded ane anither chased."
"The hours drunk wi' love's golden wineUnheeded ane anither chased."
"The hours drunk wi' love's golden wine
Unheeded ane anither chased."
"Ah!" Nancy cried here, "That's the Burns touch! I could never have done that!"
Nancy
"Her hair's gay gold, in many a fold,Unheeded on my shoulder lay."
"Her hair's gay gold, in many a fold,Unheeded on my shoulder lay."
"Her hair's gay gold, in many a fold,
Unheeded on my shoulder lay."
Burns
"Her heart beat on my very own,And life and love were one that day."
"Her heart beat on my very own,And life and love were one that day."
"Her heart beat on my very own,
And life and love were one that day."
Nancy
"When noon was highest up in air,An ancient man came on the road."
"When noon was highest up in air,An ancient man came on the road."
"When noon was highest up in air,
An ancient man came on the road."
Burns
"And when he saw my loving fair,His eyes wi' fiercest anger glowed."
"And when he saw my loving fair,His eyes wi' fiercest anger glowed."
"And when he saw my loving fair,
His eyes wi' fiercest anger glowed."
Nancy
"'And who is this,' he cried to me,'That you have ta'en wi' you to dwell?'"
"'And who is this,' he cried to me,'That you have ta'en wi' you to dwell?'"
"'And who is this,' he cried to me,
'That you have ta'en wi' you to dwell?'"
Burns
"'Her name is Pleasure,' sir, said I,'And oh, I'm sure she loves me well.'"
"'Her name is Pleasure,' sir, said I,'And oh, I'm sure she loves me well.'"
"'Her name is Pleasure,' sir, said I,
'And oh, I'm sure she loves me well.'"
Nancy
"'Rise up,' he cried, 'no more deferTo leave a wench not over nice.'"
"'Rise up,' he cried, 'no more deferTo leave a wench not over nice.'"
"'Rise up,' he cried, 'no more defer
To leave a wench not over nice.'"
Burns
"'She's Pleasure till ye wed wi' her,Her name she changes then to Vice.'"
"'She's Pleasure till ye wed wi' her,Her name she changes then to Vice.'"
"'She's Pleasure till ye wed wi' her,
Her name she changes then to Vice.'"
Nancy
"I got me up from where I lay,And turned me toward the darkened land."
"I got me up from where I lay,And turned me toward the darkened land."
"I got me up from where I lay,
And turned me toward the darkened land."
Burns
"'Adieu,' she said, wi' no dismay,And waved toward me her lily hand."
"'Adieu,' she said, wi' no dismay,And waved toward me her lily hand."
"'Adieu,' she said, wi' no dismay,
And waved toward me her lily hand."
Nancy
"The time was set, and then we met,Old Wisdom came, and now we part."
"The time was set, and then we met,Old Wisdom came, and now we part."
"The time was set, and then we met,
Old Wisdom came, and now we part."
Burns
"'Ye gang your gate, ye'll soon forget,Nor think,' said she, 'twill break my heart.'"
"'Ye gang your gate, ye'll soon forget,Nor think,' said she, 'twill break my heart.'"
"'Ye gang your gate, ye'll soon forget,
Nor think,' said she, 'twill break my heart.'"
Nancy
"'There's something strong within ye both,That's makes ye tire of such as me."
"'There's something strong within ye both,That's makes ye tire of such as me."
"'There's something strong within ye both,
That's makes ye tire of such as me."
Burns
"'But I'm as I was made,' she quoth,'And how much better, sirs, are ye?'"
"'But I'm as I was made,' she quoth,'And how much better, sirs, are ye?'"
"'But I'm as I was made,' she quoth,
'And how much better, sirs, are ye?'"
"There's a deal of philosophy in that," cried Hamilton. "I must have a copy."
And it was from his paper that I got the lines as I set them above.
5It is strange to note that there is scarce a word spoken by Burns in all of Lord Stair's manuscript which can not be found directly or indirectly in the poet's prose or verse—Editor.
CHAPTER XVIII
I GO DOWN TO MAUCHLINE
Of all this rhyming gaiety, it will be remembered, I had no knowledge at the time, being still at Alton, chafing under the business in hand, and awaiting each post, as the days went by, with a beating heart and the expectancy of some unworded trouble.
The twelfth day passing without news, I cut the end of my business off altogether, and started for Stair, it being my thought that Nancy's visiting would be ended and that I should find her there awaiting my return. The home-coming was a dreary one, the house darkened and unsociably redd up, and I sat alone to a dinner, served me by Huey, in a depth of gloom and melancholy which he had never reached before, debating whether to write to Mauchline or to go down myself the following morning.
While turning the matter over in my mind, Mr. Francis Hastings's name was brought in to me, and the humor of the situation struck me with some force, for here was a girl partially engaged to two men, off visiting a third, with a fourth clamoring at the door to be her husband.
"Come in," I cried heartily to the large-faced young man when he appeared at the doorway. "I'm glad to see ye, Mr. Hastings. Will ye have a glass with me?" and I pushed the decanter toward him.
"You doubtless know my errand, Lord Stair," he said, refusing the brandy by a shake of the head. "You had my letter?"
"Some time since, but I put off answering it, thinking—" I hesitated; the truth being that the matter had passed clean from my mind after reading the epistle—"thinking a talk would be better."
"Have you any objections to me?" he asked, coming straight to the point.
I had a great many, but it was scarce possible to name them under the circumstances, and I shuffled a bit.
"To be frank," said I, "there are obstacles."
"What are they?" he asked, and the conceit in his tone conveyed the thought that for the honor of an alliance with him obstacles should be overcome.
"Well," said I, "there's Mr. Danvers Carmichael, who is perhaps the chief one; and his Grace of Borthwicke, another; and Duncan of Monteith, and McMurtree of Ainswere—and others whose names I could set before you."
"And does she love any of these?" he asked.
"She has not taken me into her confidence," I answered; "but my honest advice to you is to forget all about her."
"I think," he said, testily, "with your permission, I shall ask her myself."
"Yes, yes! Do!" And as I thought of all that would probably come to him for his audacity I urged it still further: "Do, by all means!" I cried.
He had scarce gone from the house, and I was still laughing a bit over the affair, when Huey, with a changed face and an excited voice, came back to me from the kitchen.
"There's a man, hard ridden, in the doorway with a letter which he will give to none but your lordship," said he, adding the thing which told the reason for his pale face and hurried voice: "He's from Mauchline."
A premonition of evil came over me, and as the fellow handed me the billet a sudden chill and shaking seized my body, so that I was forced to put the letter upon the table to keep the writing steady enough for me to see. It was from Janet McGillavorich, short to exasperation, and, with no set beginning, read as follows:
"Nancy is taken ill and lies delirious at the King's Arms in Mauchline. We have a doctor here, but I have become alarmed, for it is now the fourth day that she has been unconscious. I think it better to let you know just how matters stand, and to ask that ye come down yourself immediately upon receipt of this and bring Dr. McMurtrie with you."In haste,"Janet McGillavorich."
"Nancy is taken ill and lies delirious at the King's Arms in Mauchline. We have a doctor here, but I have become alarmed, for it is now the fourth day that she has been unconscious. I think it better to let you know just how matters stand, and to ask that ye come down yourself immediately upon receipt of this and bring Dr. McMurtrie with you.
"In haste,
"Janet McGillavorich."
If it be recalled that I had at this time no knowledge of the accident to Janet's old house, could surmise no reason for Nancy's lying at a public inn, and was in an agony of fear for her life, the wretched state of my mind can well be understood; but I was still capable of quick action, and within an hour Dr. McMurtrie, the end of his dinner carried in a bag, and myself were upon the Mauchline road.
The crawling of the coach through the darkness, the insane waits for horses, the many necessary but time-consuming details told upon my distraught mind to such an extent that when I descended at the door of the inn I felt an old and broken man. The memory of another ride which I had taken was heavy upon me, my teeth chattered, the horror showing in my face so plainly that Dame Dickenson read my thought on the instant, and coming forward, plucked me by the sleeve.
"She's better," she said, and at the sound of the words I put my head on the table and wept like a child.
Our presence being made known to Mrs. McGillavorich, she came down immediately, with a white face and tired, sleepless eyes.
"She's having the first sleep in three days," she said, "and the old doctor thinks the worst is by. But ye'd best not disturb her. Let her bide quiet now."
Dr. McMurtrie and I took turns by the bedside that day and night, but she knew neither of us, lying, in her waking moments, with scarlet cheeks and wide, delirious eyes, singing snatches of songs, weaving meaningless words together, and crying over and over again, "It's of no use—no use—no use," in a kind of eldritch sing-song which wrung my heart.
"She's had some kind of a shock," Dr. McMurtrie said, "one that she'll be some time getting over, I fear."
As to the cause of the trouble the whole house was as mystified as myself.
"I know as little of the reason of her illness as you do yourselves." Janet said, after she had narrated the doings at the inn. "On Tuesday, a little after noon, she came to me saying that she'd been in such an excited state, she was off alone to collect herself by a walk, and while she was out she passed a girl who was putting some linen on the bleach-green; Nancy spoke to her concerning some lace with which the garments were trimmed, and as they talked Rab Burns passed them, with four or five of his cronies, and the girl broke into a passion at sight of him, shaking her fist after him and calling him foul names as he went down the lane.
"At this, another girl, who was soon to be a mother, came weeping from the house, and Nancy emptied her purse to them before they parted.
"When she came in," Janet went on, "her face was white and set, her eyes seeing nothing, and when Rab Burns sent up his name to her that night she said to the maid, 'Tell Mr. Burns that Miss Stair will not see him!' and sat by the window, staring into the starlight, where I found her at five the next morning with the fever upon her and her wits gone gyte."
I have had much sorrow in my time, but the agony of suspense and suspicion with which the next few days were filled pales every grief of my life that went before this time. Was it possible, I asked God, that my wee bit, wonderful lassie, my Little Flower, had bloomed to be trodden under foot by a plowman of Ayr?
McMurtrie drove me from the house at times for rest of mind as well as exercise, and one night, at the week's end, having walked farther than usual, I entered an ale-house in the Cowgate for something to quench my thirst. There was a man standing by the window, and at sight of him, for it was Robert Burns, and the time was not yet come for me to say to him what might have to be said, I drew back, thinking myself unseen, and closed the door. I had gone but a few steps in the darkness when I felt a hand clapped on my shoulder, and turning, found Burns himself beside me.
"Come back," he cried, "come back; I want a word with ye, Lord Stair. You've come down," he cried, "to take your daughter from the company of those unfit for her to know. And you're right in it. But the thought that ye showed toward me when you went out to avoid my company is wrong; wrong, as I must face my Maker in the great last day! I've had my way with women; but in this one case I've taken such care of her as ye might hae done yourself!
"She's found the truth of me, and our friendship is by with forever! I know that well.
"But tell her from me, will ye not, that such righting of a wrong as can be done I am determined to do, and that the lassie she kens of is to be my wife as soon as she chooses. Tell her," and here the tears stood big in his eyes, "that I am sorrier than I can ever say that her mind has been assoiled by my wicked affairs—" and here he broke forth into a sudden heat—"God Almighty!" he cried, "if a woman like that had loved me, Shakespeare would have had to look to his laurels. Aye! and Fergusson, too. The Lord himself made me a poet, but she might have made me a man!"6
6Lord Stair mentions here that he afterward had from this same girl (Mrs. Nellie Brown), the following description of the poet's first meeting with the sister, Jean Armour:
"D'ye see Sam McClellan's spout over the gate there? Weel, it was just whaur Rab and Jean first foregathered. Her and me had gaen there for a gang o' water, an' I had fill't my cans first an' come ower here juist whaur you an' me's stan'in. When Jean was fillin' her stoups, Rab Burns cam' up an' began some nonsense or ither wi' her, an' they talked an' leuch sae lang that it juist made me mad; to think, tae, that she should ha'e a word to say wi' sic a lowse character as Rab Burns. When she at last cam' ower, I gied her a guid hecklin. 'Trowth,' said I, 'Jean, ye ocht to think black-burnin' shame o' yersel. Before bein' seen daffin' wi' Rab Burns, woman, I would far raither been seen speakin'—to a sodger.' That was the beginnin' o' the unfortunate acquaintance."
The marriage between the two was acknowledged to the world in 1787.—Editor.
CHAPTER XIX
THE QUARREL BETWEEN DANVERS AND NANCY
We were back at Stair for nearly a fortnight, with Nancy quite herself again, before she took me into her confidence regarding the Burns experience. Leaning against the wall by the stair-foot with her hands behind her, a way she'd had ever since she was a wee bit, the talk began, with no leading up to it on either side.
"Jock," she said, suddenly, and a quaint look came over her face, "I've never told you what made me ill at Mauchline."
"I've been waiting," I answered.
"It was a bad time for me," she continued.
"I know that, Lady-bird," said I.
"Part of me died," she said, and on this a thought flashed by me which, I have often held, that in some way her language expressed more than she knew.
"I've been filled up with conceit of myself," she went on, "and I got punished for it."
"There was never a woman living with less!" I cried, so sodden in my affection for her that I could not stand to hear her blamed, even by herself.
"Maybe I didn't show it," she said with a smile, "but I've always held, 'in to mysel',' that the gifted folk were God's aristocrats, and the day I told Danvers Carmichael and you my esteem of lords and titles and forbears I said just what I thought, though both of you laughed at me, for I reasoned that any one whom the Almighty took such special pains with must have the grand character as well. And so I made of all the people who write and paint and sing a great assembly, like Arthur's knights, who were over the earth righting wrongs and helping the weak. Then came the Burns book; and there are no words to tell the glory of it to me. All the great thoughts I had dreamed were written there, and before the power of this man, who took the commonest things of life and wrote them out in letters of gold, I felt as one might before the gods. It was of Burns I thought in my waking hours, and 'twas of him I dreamed by night; and I thanked God to be born in his country and his time, so that I might see one, from the people, who had, in its highest essence, the thing we call genius.
"But always, always," she interrupted, smiling, "with the conceit of myself which I mentioned before. Because God had given me a little gift, I believed that I was in some degree a chosen creature, a bit like the Burns man himself.
"The first time I talked with him at the inn I felt his power, his charm; but there was something in his ways to which I had never been accustomed in men—a certain freedom, which I put by, however, as one of the peculiarities of his gift.
"Well," she said, coming over and burying her face in my breast, "it took me but two weeks to discover that the thing we call genius has no more to do with a person's character than the chair he sits in; that a man can write like a god and live like the beasts in the fields. Can speak of Christian charity like the disciples of old, and hold the next person who offends him up to the ridicule of the whole parish! That he can write lines surpassing—aye!" she cried, "surpassingPolonius's advice to his son, and leave them uncopied on an ale-house table to go off with the first loose woman who comes by, and be carried home, too drunk to walk, the next morning, roaring out hymns about eternal salvation.
"And after I met the Armour girl, and found the harm that Burns had brought to her, my idol fell from its clay feet, and I was alone in a strange country, with my gods gone, and my beliefs in shreds around me.
"But I have made my readjustments. I am humbled. I see how little value verse-making holds to the real task of living, and I am a better woman for what I have been through. I have learned—almost losing my mind over the lesson," she interjected, with her own bright smile—"the value of the solid virtues of life; and I've come to the conclusion that it is harder to be a gentleman than a genius. God makes one, but a man has the handling of the other upon himself. Danvers Carmichael," she continued, looking up at me, "is a gentleman. His word is his bond. He considers others, respects woman and honors her; controls his nature, and has a code of conduct which he would rather die than break. Ah!" she said, "I have had a bitter time; but it's taught me to appreciate that in the real things of life—the things for which we are here, love, home, and the rearing of children—genius has about as much part as the royal Bengal tiger. It's beautiful to look at, but dangerous to trifle with, and,"—here she smiled at her own earnestness for a second as she started up the stairs—"and here endeth the first lesson, my Lord of Stair!"
I was in no way sorry as to her conclusions about the value of verse-making, for I had seen that her continual mental excitement was sapping her vitality; and I closed my eyes to sleep that night with a feeling of gratitude to my Heavenly Father that the Burns business was by with forever.
Toward noon of the next day I discovered my mistake. Smoking by the fire in the chimney corner of the hall, I heard a clattering of horses' hoofs on the gravel outside, and from the window saw Danvers Carmichael throw the reins to his groom, run up the steps of the main entrance, and ask for Miss Stair in a voice strangely unlike his usual one. I knew that Nancy was sitting with some lace-work in her own writing-room, and hoped much from their meeting, and that her recent experience, which made her set a new value on Danvers, would bring about a more complete understanding between them.
"Ah, Dandy!" said Nancy, her voice having a ring of pleasure in it. "When did you return from Glasgow?"
"Late yesterday," he answered. "I dined at the club in town and rode home about ten. I'm thinking of leaving Arran for a time," he said, coldly.
"Why didn't you stop?" she asked, with some surprise.
"I was in no mood for visiting last night."
"You were ill, or worried?" Nancy inquired anxiously.
"Worried, ill," he answered. "Ill, and ashamed, and miserable, in a way, please God, most men may never know."
"What is it, Dandy?" and I saw that at his vehemence she put her work on the table and moved toward him.
"Oh!" he cried out, "it's you! It's you! In the month before I went away I had to endure God only knows what bitterness because of you! And on my return last night I hear at the club that ye've been off in Ayrshire visiting Robert Burns! Did ye have a pleasant time?" he asked, glowering down at her from his great height, handsome and angrier than I had ever seen him before.
The tone rather than the words struck fire immediately, and Nancy's eyes took a peculiar significance, boding little good to the one with whom she was having dealings.
"Very pleasant," she answered, in a voice of ice, picking up her work and reseating herself.
"Before I went away," Danvers continued, "there was little in the way of humiliation which I had not endured at your hands! I've seen ye play fast and loose with half the men in Edinbro'—aye, in the whole of Scotland, it seems to me! I have heard your name coupled more often than I can tell with that of the greatest scoundrel in Scotland, and have held silence concerning it; and when things came to that pass that none could endure it and I struck him; how was the affair settled. By your sending for him!—for him!" he fairly screamed, "while I, your betrothed husband almost, was left in ignorance that ye knew of the matter at all.
"And at the time of the meeting in the Holm, what does the damned scoundrel do but come forth with his friends and apologize for his conduct with seeming generosity, naming the whole business the result of a crusty temper of his own, apologizing handsomely, and in a devilish open way, ending by saying:
"'One who is dear to me has shown me my faults, and I am doing her bidding, as well as fulfilling my own sense of justice, in asking your pardon!' And at the mention of you he took off his hat and spoke as one who performs an obligation to another who has a right to demand it.
"You can perhaps see the light in which I was placed! Even my own friends went over to the duke's side, and I was forced to shake his damned hand and join him at the Red Cock for breakfast or show a surly front by my refusal. I was made a laughing stock for the whole party. Put in the wrong in every way; and even Billy Deuceace, a man of penetration, was so deceived by this, that afterward he bade me, with a laugh, 'fight about women who were in love with me and not with other men.'"
During this rehearsal of his wrongs Nancy sat quietly embroidering, not looking at the speaker nor seeming to note the voice at all.
"I said nothing of the affair to you," he continued; "I thought to let the thing go by, and went off to Glasgow, hoping to forget it before we met again. And what do I come back to? To learn that half the town has it that you've visited an inn in another county and spent your days, aye, and I suppose they say your nights, too, with Rab Burns, whom decent folk will not let their daughters know. At tales like this the affair takes on another complexion. I do not want a wife for myself, nor a mother for my children, whose name has been bandied about like that!"
He was so beside himself with rage and jealousy and the further present annoyance of Nancy's inattention, that he raised his voice at the end to a tone of harshness, such as none had ever used to Nancy Stair, and which she was the last woman to stand patient under. She did the thing by instinct which would enrage him most, putting a thread to her needle, squinting up one eye as she did so, in a composed and usual manner, and letting a silence fall before she said, in a level and unemotional voice:
"Sit down, Dandy, and stop shouting. There's no use getting the town-guard out because you chance not to want me any longer for a wife. You don't have to have me, you know!"
He seemed somewhat dashed by this, and there was a pause, during which he took a paper from his pocket and cast it on the table before her.
"No," he says, "and that's very true; but for your own sake as the Lord of Stair's daughter, I'd write no more verses like these. God!" he cried, "to think of that white-faced American having a thing like that from you!"
"What's the matter with the writing?" she said, looking down at it as though its literary merit were the thing he questioned. "Mr. Hastings," she explained, "had an old song called the Trail of the Gipsies, and he rather flouted me because I set such store by it, but had it lined and sent me with some flowers. On the minute of their coming, and with the thought of how little the Anglo-Saxon comprehends any race save his own, I wrote these lines. I see no harm in them!"
As Nancy read the poem7over she looked up with the same curious look.
"What's the matter with it?" she asked again.
"The matter with it?" he repeated after her. "It's a thing no lady should ever have thought, and no woman should ever have written."
"Ye think so?" she said, and there was an amused tolerance in her voice as of discussing a mature subject with a child, adding in a tone as remote as if speaking of the Tenant Act, "Your opinions are always interesting, Dand."
"Interesting to you they may or may not be, but it's just come to this: A young woman who continues the relations you do with the greatest scoundrel on earth; who writes verses immoral in tone to one man and visits another for weeks in an ale-house—but," and here he broke off suddenly, "you may know no better with your rearing."
"Miss Erskine will perhaps have been telling you what it is customary for young ladies to do," Nancy suggested, in a dangerous, level voice.
"I do not need telling. It's a thing about which right-thinking people will agree without words," he answered; and it was here that Nancy spoke in her own voice, though heated by anger, and with the words coming faster than ordinary.
"And that's maybe true," she said; "but there are other things to be considered. It has always been in my mind that most marriages are very badly made up," she said. "That in this greatest of all affairs between a man and a woman people lose their wits and trust to a blind kind of attraction for each other. I have thought to use my head a bit more in the matter. The very fact that you are misunderstanding me now as you do goes far to prove how foolish a marriage between us would have been."
"Heavens!" he cried, "you talk of marriage as though it were a contract between two shop-keepers to be argle-bargled over. It's an affair of the heart, not of the head. Ye've never loved me," he said bitterly, "or ye'd know that."
"That may be true," Nancy answered, mutinously. "I have tried to be fair to you, however, and not to let you have a wife who didn't know her own mind. I am, as you reminded me, different from other women in many ways. I like many——"
"I've noted that," he interrupted with scant courtesy.
"And I'm afraid I shall continue to like them for one thing or another till the end; and you're of a jealous turn, Danvers," she said, coldly.
"I have been," he said. "Where you were concerned I haven't a generous thought. I take shares in my wife with no man. I have been jealous of the sound of your voice, the glance of your eye. What I have had to endure because of this ye must surely have seen! When a woman loves a man she has no thought for another——"
"It's may be so," Nancy broke in, "but it's as entirely beyond me as flying. If I loved you with all there is of me, and another came by with a bit of a rhyme, or a new tale, or a plan quite of his own thinking, the chances are many that you'd be clear out of my mind while he stayed."
"'Tis fortunate, as you say," he interrupted, "that we discover this before 'tis too late. I think it's a peculiarity that will go far to making the husband you take for yourself a very unhappy man."
"He will perhaps understand me better than you do," Nancy answered gently.
"Oh," he cried at this, "can't you see that a woman surrenders herself when she loves? She gives as gladly as a man takes, and is happy to have him for her lord and master. Not that he wishes to rule her, for 'twould be the thought of his life that her every desire should be filled, but she must be willing to yield."
"Ye'd have made a grand Turk," Nancy broke in, and there was a glint of humor in her tone as she spoke the words.
"I think," Danvers answered, "you'll find me asking only what most men expect to get."
"If that be true, the chances are heavy that I shall live and die unwed," she said with a laugh.
"Oh, no!" he cried, in a cutting voice. "I dare say your mind's made up as to what you intend to do! Perhaps when you're the Duchess of Borthwicke his grace will enjoy your visiting other men and writing lines like these," and he dashed his fist on the paper again.
Nancy had by this time come to the far end of her patience, and she was on her feet in a minute.
"Listen to me," she said. "I went to Ayrshire at the written asking of Janet McGillavorich to come to her own home. The morning I started for Mauchline the rear of her house fell into the cellar, making it extremely dangerous to remain in any part of the dwelling. I went to the inn only because she was there, and she stayed with me until my father came and took me away. I saw Robert Burns alone but once, entirely by accident, in the broad light of day.
"As for the rhyme," and she looked down at the paper for a moment, regarding it as a thing of no importance whatever, "it was not I who spoke in the lines, but a gipsy girl of my imaginings. Ye've had little personal experience with the thing called gift——"
He must have thought there was some flouting of him in this, for he broke in heatedly:
"And I thank God for it," he cried, "for it seems to be a thing which makes people betray trusts, lose all thought for others, raise hopes which they never intend to fulfil, unbridle their passions, forget their sex, and ride away to the deil at their own gate."
None could have foreseen the effect this speech had upon Nancy; the thought it contained falling so parallel to her own talk of the night before; but it's one matter to say a thing of one's self and an entirely different affair to have it said concerning one, and in a minute her anger fairly matched his own.
"Ye've insulted me, Danvers," she said, "many times in this talk, both in word and look; insulted me in my father's house, where you've been welcome, boy and man, ever since ye were born; insulted me, too, in a way I'm not like to forget."
She stood very tall and straight, her cheeks aflame, the lace on her bosom trembling with the quickness of her breathing, and her work dropped on the table before her as she slipped from her finger the ruby ring and pushed it toward him.
"Go away or stay at Arran, as you please! Ride or tie as best suits your mind, for in the way of love everything is gone between us for all time. And where ye go," she went on, "ye who pride yereself so on your birth and breeding, just recall the fact that of all the men of gift whom I have known, and they have been many, not one has ever forgotten himself before me as you have done to-day, nor insulted the daughter of a friend in her own house!"
He made no move to take the ring, and it lay twinkling on the table between them as Nancy turned to leave the room.
"Good-by," he said, turning white, and then (and I thought a heart of stone might be touched by the compliment under such circumstances) "Oh," he cried, as though the words were forced from him, "you are so beautiful!"
"The country's full of pretty women, any one of whom will be likely to marry you, when you order her to!" Nancy returned with an exasperating smile.
"I'll try it and see. I think I will not go away from Arran. I may do something that will surprise you," he added.
"There's nothing ye could do that would surprise me, unless it were something sensible, and ye're not like to do that," she retorted, and without another word she left him standing alone, and he flung himself out of the house, disappearing across the lawn, in the direction of Arran, with a white face and a brooding devil in his eyes that showed his mind obstinate and unrelenting, and in a mood to do any foolish thing that came by.