Nancy Stair. Elinor Macartney Lane
I tried, knowing the inadequacy of words, even while speaking, to thank her for my wonderful child, when she interrupted me.
"I should have died but for her—after"—she broke off here, not wishing to name the sorrow between us. "But you've not seen the wonder of her yet; she has the whole Cairn Mills bewitched, and if she were a queen on her throne could not have her way more than she does now."
It was of a piece with the Dame's thoughtfulness to have prepared for me a room which I had never known, and where no memories dwelt; a low-raftered apartment on the land-side of the house, with a window looking over the garden and a fire burning cheerily in the corner chimney. Dropping off to sleep, happier than I thought it possible for me to be again, I became aware that there was some one in the room with me. Opening my eyes, I found Nancy, with her long white gown gathered on her breast to keep it from the floor, standing looking at me, her head about level with my own as it lay on the pillow.
"What is it?" I asked.
"GetinwifJock," she answered.
"What?" I inquired again, for she had slipped her words all together.
"Get—in—wif—Jock," she repeated, with an unmistakable movement of her small hand to turn back the bed covers.
"You darling!" I cried, and drew her in beside me.
The tenderness I felt for her as she lay on my breast was akin to agony. I trembled at the touch of her, and what she meant to me, and all that I had missed. And long after she fell asleep, I lay, seeing the past with new eyes, understanding new truths, and making myself, please God, a better man.
I woke the next morning about eight, to find her gone, but as I was dressing by the window I saw her below me in the garden, busy with some hens that were clucking all about her.
"Hello, Little Flower," I called to her.1
She smiled up at me, blinking in the strong sunshine, and I hastened down to join her.
"Are you willing to come back with me to Stair?" I asked.
"We're getting ready, Jock," she answered, putting her hand in mine.
"We?" I inquired. "Whom do you mean?"
"Nancy Stair," she said, touching herself on the breast with her small forefinger, "Dame Dickenson, Father Michel, Uncle Ben, the two or three dogs, the kittens, the one without a name, the drey hen, and the broken owl——"
"Nancy Stair," I broke in, with some firmness in my voice, "it will be utterly impossible to take all these folk up to Stair Castle."
She looked at me and went white, as grown people do when news which chills the blood is suddenly brought to them, and struck her little hands together as though in pain. Turning suddenly she left me and trotted off through a cleft in the stone wall of the kitchen garden, to which place I followed her, with remorse in my heart for the rough way in which I had spoken.
I found her lying flat in the grass, her face hidden in her arms, her body trembling, but she made no sound.
"What is it, dear?" I asked.
"I can't go," she said, without looking up, "I can't go, Jock."
"Why?" I inquired.
She arose at this and leaned against me, her head but little above my knee and her eyes looking straight up into mine.
"Oh, don't you see?" she cried. "I can't go!—I can't go and leave my people, Jock!"
I can see now that then was the time I should have been firm with her, and have escaped the tyranny of latter years. Firm with her! Firm! while Nancy stood leaning against me with her baby curls under my hand. Firm! with eyes that held tears in them, tears which I had caused.
"Take them," I cried, "take the free-traders, the old wreck, the Cairn Mills, and the new light-house, for all of me; but never let me see that look in your face again, my little one!" and I had her in my arms, as weak a father as I had been as lover and as husband, with the resulting that I, John Stair, Lord of Stair and Alton in the Mearns, in company with Dame Dickenson, Father Michel, Uncle Ben, the two or three dogs, the kittens, the Nameless One, the "drey hen," and a small child holding a dissipated-looking owl with but one whole feather in its tail, drove up to the gateway of Stair Castle in a gipsy wagon of an abandoned character, on the afternoon of a day in late February, in the year 1773.
1The name came to me with no thought, but for years it was the one she fancied most, and many of her early poems were signed L.F.S., or sometimes by nothing save a queer little drawing, half rose and half daisy.
(The manuscript of the "Maid with the Wistfu' Eye" in the Edinburgh collection has only this mark as signature.)
CHAPTER V
I MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A STRANGE CHILD
Several days after this strange home-coming some business called me to the far woods, where I was detained until the afternoon sun was well on its way behind the hills. Nearing the house I discovered Nancy huddled in a little bunch, sitting by her lee-lane in a spot of sunshine on the west steps—such a lovable, touchable little bundle as she sat there, with her chin in her hand. I looked for the exuberant welcome which I had always received, but it was wanting; and as I stood waiting some greeting from her, she made a quaint gesture of dismissal to me:
"Jock mustn't disturb Nancy now," she said; "Nancy's making verses." There was in the atom's voice nothing but a statement of her wishes. That I was her father and one to be obeyed never entered her curly head, and her tone implied the belief that I would respect her lights as she would mine. I can honestly state that I never was more dismayed in my life. I entered the library, wondering what had happened in my absence, and considering whether to send for Dickenson and make some inquiries.
It was gone a half hour perhaps before Nancy came in through the low window, and crossing the room to the place I sat, leaned herself against my knee.
"Listen," she said:
Jock Stair's gone away,
Where I cannot fancy.
Jock Stair's gone away,
Gone and left his Nancy.
O, Jock, I cannot say
How much I miss you,
If you were here to-day
Nancy would kiss you.
Her cheeks were roses, her eyes shone with a misty light, and the verse so rapturous to herself that she struck her little hands together when she had finished.
"Do you like it, Jock? Is it pretty?" she asked.
"You blessed baby," I answered, "who taught you?"
"They come," she said, "and afterward Nancy's head-iks," and she put her morsel of a hand to her forehead, as a grown person with headache does.
"Head-iks!" she said again with emphasis.
The second day after this remarkable event, Sandy, who was riding by, called over the wall to me, as I stood with Nancy by my side.
"Well," he cried, "what do you think of my girl, Nancy Stair?"
"The same that you do yourself," I retorted. "Come in and lunch with us, won't you?"
He made no answer in words, but turning his horse toward the south gate, entered the policy, and I sent Nancy off to tell Kirstie that Mr. Carmichael would dine with us, for I thought it no right part of a child's rearing that she