Nancy Stair

“ I, Nancy Stair-Carmichael, have learned that verse-making and verse-singing and the publicity that goes with them do not make me a finer woman; I have learned that my woman's body is not strong enough for the mental excitement of that existence, and to be a daughter, a wife and a mother, as well, and that God in his goodness sent a certain great poet into my life to show me that gift is nothing beside womanhood. ”

“ Take a man like this lad, who has been spoiled by an overfond mother, and a woman like Nancy, who has had her own way since birth, marry them to each other, and you've a magnificent basis for trouble. Why don't you marry your cousin Isabel? You'd thoughts of it before you left London!" he ended, in a futile way.
"I'm going to marry Nancy Stair, if she'll have me," Danvers replied, doggedly.
"Well, well, she may not have you," Sandy replied, soothingly. "And as she's under the lilacs you may care to join her." ”

“ And she turned her face toward mine.
"I'm just yours for the asking, Jock."
I drew her to me, and we kissed each other beneath the starlit blue, with the sea wind blowing our hair and the gipsy singing coming, in broken bits of melody, up through the gorse and heather.
I made a song of it after, in my limping verse, which Nancy found one day, and laughed at, I remember:
The gipsies are out, I can see their lights moving,
Race answers to race, 'neath the stars and the blue;
They are living and laughing and mating and loving,
As I stand in the midnight with you, love, with you! ”

“ It will be proven that on the day preceding the murder there was published in an Edinburgh paper called The Lounger the news that an engagement of marriage had been contracted between the late John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Muir, etc., and Mistress Nancy Stair, only daughter of John Stair, Lord of Stair and Alton in the Mearns. ”

“ As we sat in dispute over it, upward of an hour later, I heard Nancy go to her room without coming in to wish us a good night, and a second later Danvers Carmichael stood in the doorway. It was good for us older men to see the lad, and at the sight of him I was out under the stars of Landgore; the sound of gipsy singing, the salt from the sea, and the odor of blown hawthorn were in the room, and I was young again with Marian Ingarrach folded in my arms. The brooding look was gone from his eyes and his face bore a strange illumination. ”

“ An hour passed, two; and when midnight was tolled, I knew that Nancy's health must be thought of, and crossed the hall to pack Danvers off home. I found him, glorified, at one side of the chimney-shelf, and Nancy, like a beautiful crumpled rose, at the other; Nancy, with eyes showing the memory of Danvers's kisses; conscious to the finger-tips, all woman, who had been learning for the past two hours from her lover's passionate caresses the Meaning of Life.
"Be off home with you, Danvers Carmichael," I cried. "Ye'll have this child of mine ill again!" ”

“ Until ye had a wife there was never one who entered the door more welcome, but as long as I have Nancy Stair to think about, ye'll just have to end these visits entirely. With the matter of an old love between you, an affair known to the whole town as well, your conduct is fair impossible, and, what is more, misunderstood! ”

“ It's a wise man that understands that no two women are alike. John Stair and I have seen something of life in our time, aye, and something of women; but Nancy's a different creature from anything in our ken. Ye might just trust a little to our judgment of her."
If Danvers were abashed by this speech he showed it never a whit, but stood very erect, his brows drawn into a scowl not unlike Nancy's own, glowering first at his father and then at me. Sandy, who was, in his mind's eye, re-rigging a schooner, went on with his paper-and-pencil work, unconscious of his son's scrutiny. ”

“ In this pleasant way we fell to talk of Nancy, of her gifts, her beauty, her loving tenderness for all things, her strange up-bringing, her people on the Burnside; and to a doting father such as I was the time flew quickly by.
I noted at length that there was some stir in the circle around her, and watched her cross the room with her Grace of Gordon and Danvers Carmichael in attendance, to the musicians' place in the great window.
I have wondered at times if folk who dwell on the temptations male creatures have think ever of those which come to women of great attractiveness to men. ”

“ His grief had so worked upon him by this time that Nancy was beside herself with fear for him, although she spoke quietly and in as natural a voice as she could summon.
"I'll go with you, Dandie," she said; "I'll go with you. Wait for me," reentering her room; "just wait for me!"
It took her but a moment to get some stout walking-boots, a dark skirt, and the scarlet Connemara cloak which she had worn on many of their walks together, and pulling the hood of it over her head, she stepped softly back into the hallway.
"I am ready," she said, slipping her hand into his; "I am ready. ”

“ I asked mine host of the inn if I could get a horse from him to ride to Arran House; upon which he told me that there would be no use in my going to Arran as Mr. Carmichael was from home, being bid to dinner at Lord Stair's; that it was the eighteenth birthday of Mistress Nancy Stair, and that Jamie Henderlin had come from Germany with his violin the week before and was to play at Stair House after the dinner; that the Lord Stair, who was a fond father, had but this afternoon given the family jewels to Mistress Nancy, and that one ruby alone would buy the inn; that Mr. ”

“ Nancy answered, with a smile.
He looked at her in silence, with an amused expression in his face.
"I like you," he said at length, and a dare-devil look came into his eyes, a look which showed at once his strength and his weakness. "I like your fearlessness as well as your honesty. I can mate your frankness by my own. I have long desired to know what is said of me, and have a mind to make a compact with you, if you will. I hear lies on every side. They are the stuff of which my daily bread is baked. Come," he cried, "a bargain between us. ”

“ Robert Burns.
"Ye can't educate women as you can men. They're elemental creatures; and ye can no more change their natures than ye can stop fire from burning."
Hugh Pitcairn.
PREFACE BY LORD STAIR
Two excellent accounts of the beautiful Nancy Stair have already been published; the first by Mrs. George Opie, in the Scots News, giving a detailed account of the work on the burnside, and a more recent one by Professor Erskine, of our own University, which is little more than a critical dissertation upon Nancy as a poet ”

“ He may not even be in Scotland."
"He is in Edinburgh at the moment," she answered, "at the 'Sign of the Blue Thistle.' He has with him his secretary, Donovan; his valet, and two serving-men. They have their lodgment in four rooms on the second floor; he is bid to the ball at the Duchess of Gordon's to-night and at eleven to-morrow leaves in his private coach for the Highlands."
"The Government should employ you, Nancy Stair," Sandy broke in with a laugh. "The country is just now needing people who can pick up such accurate information." ”

“ My heart went out to all this suffering, but death so near increased my anxiety for my own child, and when the news was brought me on the following morning that Isabel had passed away during the night, the fear for Nancy rose high in me, and I became like a crazed creature, wandering from one room to another, with half-begun prayers to God upon my lips and a feeling of utter helplessness heavy on my soul. ”

“ Aye," he concluded, "ye'll be proud of Danvers!"
"And what of my girl?" I asked.
"Nancy," he said, a curious look coming into his face as he smiled; "she's one you must see to judge of for yourself. I've raised her up as well as I could. I've spent time with her!"
His determined reticence, which had some humor in it, put me on my metal concerning the child, and the day after my arrival I sent Tam MacColl with a written request to Dame Dickenson to fetch the little one immediately to Stair. ”

“ 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." ”

“ On toward midnight I was awakened by Dickenson clamoring at my door, telling me that Nancy lay delirious, with a high fever, calling for me. Making what haste I could, I reached the poor child, to find her tossing from one side of the bed to the other, uttering hoarse cries, with neither intelligence in her glance nor recognition of either my presence or my voice. McMurtrie's attitude, after his examination, drove me wild with fear. "It's like to be a long case," he said. "I want ye to get Dr. Cameron from Glasgow. ”

“ And it was here that I had a taste of his fine temper, for he turned upon me in a sudden heat that made him splendid and natural to the eye.
"I have not heard that my Lord Stair was over-deliberate in his own wooing," he said.
I laughed aloud as he glowered at me, and put my hand on his shoulder, for I liked his impetuous ways and his deil's temper.
"There, there," I said, "gang your own gate. I but wanted ye to know what ye might expect in a wife. She'll contradict ye——"
"I don't want a wife who is an echo of myself," he retorted. ”

“ Understanding that a discussion of the marriage in her presence was an impossibility, Nancy left us, with a white face, on some pretense of business at the Burnside, and Sandy and I talked it out between us. Midnight found us going back and forth over the matter and arriving at the same point, that the chances of happiness for a man wedded to one woman and in love with another are just nothing at all. ”

“ I cried. "Ah, girl, dinna ye see I canna get my breath for wantin' ye?"
She stood looking at me, her chin well up and an amused and a glad look in her eyes.
"Ah," she said at length, "you are the one who is worth all that a woman has to give, and the blood of all the lawless folk of which I come speaks for you, Jock Stair! For ye woo as a man should woo; and I'm won as a woman should be won, because she has no will left to choose." ”

“ Sign it," said Nancy.
"I am willing," the duke answered, with an odd smile; "but, little girl, a man doesn't insult another man and then crawl out of the consequences of his act by letter. Have I your permission to effect this thing in a bit more masculine way? I promise a retraction of my conduct, and that I shall be humble enough——"
"And there will be no duel?"
"There will be no duel," Borthwicke answered, and, subtle creature that he was, he saw by the look in Nancy's face how much his yielding had gained for him with her, and seized the occasion. ”

“ Deny the duke the house, and what have ye done to a girl of spirit? Urged her into his arms, and nothing else——"
Sandy's talk was all on Nancy's side, however, which made the situation a bit easier for me.
"You see, it's thiswise with most women," said he. "Give them a husband to dandle them, and some children for them to dandle themselves, and a house to potter round, with some baubles to wear when they're young, and some money in the bank when they're old, and they go along with small agitation of mind until the grave. ”

“ We arrived late at the ball, to find the rooms already crowded, and the Arran party, with Sir Patrick Sullivan, gathered in a group by the large window of the music-room.
Jane Gordon held me in talk a minute as I passed her, and for this reason his grace offered his arm to Nancy, and as the two of them passed together a hush fell on the people at the sight of them, and I could see by significant glances and the jogging of elbows that Edinburgh folks would take the news of a betrothal between them with small surprise. ”

“ The little one's heart was so touched by his sorrow and his age that she came back to Sandy and me with tears in her eyes, saying that if Huey couldn't go she would stay at home herself.
As he was too old and broken to travel with safety to himself, and as Nancy remained fixed as death, the Irish trip was not taken; by which, but for the whim of this old serving-man, we might have been from Scotland and avoided the bitter trouble which began at the Allisons' rout given in honor of the home-coming of Danvers and his bride. ”

“ I answered at a sight of Isabel's pale face and Sandy's anxious eyes.
Upon the instant Montrose started toward the place where Nancy stood, a little apart from a group of gay people, so that her talk with Danvers could be in the nature of a private one, if desired. As the duke made his way toward her I followed a little in the rear. He was, as always, smiling, calm, master of himself and of others, and as he came toward her he asked, in a low tone of penetrating quality, which by intention conveyed both affection and the rights of ownership:
"You are not tiring yourself?" ”

“ We were preparing to be off together when Nancy came down to us, pale and heavy-eyed.
"Jock," said she, "if Mr. Magendie had the word he hoped for from Father Michel, it would be wise for him to have as many Romanists in the jury as he can get. They have reason to know the priest's goodness." And then: "Jock, darling!" she cried, throwing her arms around my neck and weeping as though her heart would break, "there's a trial coming between us; and ye'll see me misjudged by the world, and by Sandy as well, who has been like an own father to me! And by him!—him, too! You'll all be ashamed of me ”