SCOTTISH HEROINES.

Otago Witness, Volume 06, Issue 2899, 6 October 1909, Page 88

SCO TTISH HEROINES.

7 - By - Jessie Mackat.

IV.— NANCY' STAIR. A curious development o-f the modern historical or semi-historical ' British novel is ' the frequency' and pungency of its American authorship. Mark Twain's splendid irruptions into -the ' cbbwebbed ages of chivalry, Mary Johnston's' Elizabethan idyl -of" Sir Mortimer," and that aureolsd Byron-study, "The Castaway," by Hallie Ermdnie Rives, are all cases in point. One hardly knows how to class the amphibious Mrs Hodgson Burnett; but it is to her wild Galatea, the Lady of Quality, that one instinctively turns when seeking a match for Elinor Macartney Lane's Nancy Stair. Yet' the brilliant Irish-American' who created . Nancy to be a thing "of spirit, fire, and dew ' did not borrow conspicuously from her Graos of Osmonde, still lees from her Grace in the "making as Clo Wildair,s. And yet there are strong similarities in -the -lives of these seJf-eanaodpa-te'd/ heroin*.?, both at the amazing outset and at the mellow conclusion. - Both . wene motherless from birth; both defied outer law, and .were law and light to themselves where lesser souls had found darkness : both ruled their world absolutely by right of conquest; both draw the quintessence of womanly charm from a rearing and . atmosphere wholly mannish ; both oame back, loveI led, to the fold cf absolute conventional femininity, alboJt vie!- and gracious. But though at stress both broke laws like cobwebs, the woman's conscience of Nancy, if such a thing could be imputed to a cr-ea-ture so ethereally elemental, remained white as snow first and last. And this, as Mi-d Lane show,?, -works out as simply as two and two total four. For Nan:-y was the glorious child of a irlorkms love — the love cf wilful, wirifome "Jock." Lord of Stair, and the lovely lrhh gi^y,' Marian ! Ingarrncii, whom ii 3 .'aw oik; cissy. we-Jtle'l the next, and held in a bower by the Northern Sea fo<- on* glad, wonderful year. Nancy's whole being was woven of love, power, purity, pochy — a rainbov/ life untouched by the unforeis-cn stroke tlv&t laid ' Jock Staii's happin.e*? low in Marian's Far other was tha coming of Clnvinda. ths Phornix-child born from the wr.ful ashes of the life of Baplme Wil- ' d:iirs — Daphna, the irj-mltiJ, naglecle.-] ! ivif-2 of the 'foai'.°3 roue, Sir GfiofiY-^v. i A Phcenix-child, in truth, the fire of selfwill and reb-jHi'TP her native clement, and j yst born for goodness as for power. Both, • indeed, found their goal in love; but it i was the meek' single-hearted worship of her shadowy "sifter Anr.6 th;<t first re--decmnd -flic' dark Am&xon (jinv ; --r:a ha'fore she met the %veat and gracious Duke i of Osmonde, a v>/v Hyperion among ths ] 5-atyrs of heT early ivorld. • Nancy was j reared -among", men -of ar-otfrer ■•faAhioiv — •<■ great-hearted ' Jock Stain-, loyal Sa"ndy- f 'a<r-» j • michael. who "played a SsottisK 'Roland to ' Jock's Oliver from- *the first bove'r H3te '" - last ; gentle Father Michel — even 'grafiity IHugh Pitca ; i"n-, ?the advocate — aJI God J fear- '!; ing men in their several' ways,- and all iic- j

'. i in some way to minister to tire eerily pre0 j cocious and beautiful mind of Littla ;. ] Flower, as her doting father called her. 3 j And lastly there was Danvers Garmichael," c j Sandy's courtly and liandsome son. And 1 here at last Clorinda has the advantage, ' for Danvers, though well enough as heroes " I were wont to go, is miles behind the x stately Duk-s of Osmonde, and goes fair to j wreck the life of Nancy, as well as his » j own, in his jealous passion. - Though it L - j is but fair to add that Nancy's bland and ,- easy platonics wers enough to strike fire , out of a moin'k of the Ttbeoaid, mucii n:oi« i out of a high-spirited young Scotchman of 5 twenty-three over-prosperous years. ' " Narvcy Stair" is a book strong as fire, | but white as milk, yet ; fc is a problem. I tangle of sorts. The problem is just ' t "woman's sphere" ; and yet the worn old . • phrase is disguised and embroidered by i Mrs Macartney Lane till it reads crisp •and fresh with the dew of frisk "wit and i. the zest of American audacity. And here » comes >'n - a scholar's triumph ; sfia has '< soaked up the national * colour with avidity ; Jock Stair, dilettante, man . -of [ I affairs, man of sentiment, and king of ' J good fellows, keeps a Scotch tongue in his j hsad : would pass muster alongside oi David Balfour. Sandy, his Liegenia,ii. is > hit- off to the life ; so is the saturnine Pit- ; cairn, who first antagonized Nancy's fierce little knight-errant soul by his stern dealings, then schooled her in the law, to h^ 1 i half beaten by her in open court at th 3 end. But is Nancy a real Scottish I heroine? That is hard to answer. It s [ safe, perhaps, to fay she was as truly. . Scottish as Clorinda \Yildairs was English ; J such strong elementals as they vefiise to |be crushed. into earthly moulds. "But the ; strong loyalty of 'her, at least, is worthy of such, a living prototype as that n:ost> Scottish slip of woman-hood, Grizei Coriirane. Nowhere is tliis more beautifully; | expressed'than in Lord Stair's t irst i interview with his daughter, then rounding Heififth year. ,He has spent five unquiet wander-.ysars trying .to forget his ,sorrow, s and comes back to 'find, under the faithful guardianship of Sandy Carmichael, a beautiful baby poet, 1 sweet as wild" thyme. strong as a Norway 'pine, ready to 'throw herself , into her father's arms and go with, him t<s Stair — ton; conditions. ' ' " We're getting ready, Jock," she" says' to, him cheerfully. . ' _ "We? Whom do you, mean?" .he, in--quires. w - • '"Nancy Staif, D.ams Dickenson, Father Michel, Uncle Ben, the two or three dogs, the kittens, the one without a name, ths drey hen, and the broken owl ", The" f ather t.ries to 'harden " "lis heart ; it'wilkbe impossible, he says, to transport her .small northern world bodily to -Stair Castle: — "She looked ', at me and went white, as grown' people" do when .news which eliills the blood is bixraght to them, > and, struck, her little hands together a^ though in pain." Afterwards he- finds her in tihe garden sobbing her heart. out on the grass. "I can't go, Jock," the mite wails. - a Oh, don't you see? I can't go and leave my people !" ,- s So Nancy witjh^tier _whole entburaga goes home to be tihe, mistress of, Stair Castle .and t-he light of lver father's eyes. But this train of TetaineTS doss- not complete Iher demands tos a chatelaine. She has a heart as deep-andias wide- as the sea. ' "She" was a lawless little bc-dj', going around the grounds- at' her "own -pleasure, and bringing bacli ' some living thing at every expedition to be cared Tor at the I house. These findings included' lame dog?. I rabbits, cats; arwi 1 finally she came into the library breathless : " ' I got a boy to-day, Jock," she said, exactly as I might have stated I had caught a fiah. ' A boy, } sh& repeated, every, feature in her f acte alight. ' Father Michel's got-ULm. I mean to keep him.' "Going drown with her to inspect this new treasure, ' I found, a lad eight or ten .years of~ age, very , sickly, with a . hump upon his back, and of. a notably unprepossessing appear-aoiee, 'carrying a 'fiddle, and evidently forsaken •by some strolling player." ' Of fhtis unpromising find, it may ba j said, Nance finally makes a trained I musician, whose name w«rot oven- all' Scotland, I Out o£ this curiously-assorted colony of Nancy's at the gate of Stair Castle in' due time oomes a little laoe-makiiig comnzarodtiy, throwing off h.ives north and - south, and settling at least c-ne labour problem of the time. For Nancy's head , kept tune and time with her heart. Also her uncanny little finders handled a r pen with precocity unparalleled ; she wa.tchos her father making Herculean efforts to set right an error in his accounts, and calmly elucidates the i mystery by touching one of the papers which she had gr<v,\n to know meant money for needy hunc'h-ba-eks and such. "Nancy mvde cne like Jock's," sho expl?i. ; n>&4 with heavenj^- irrccenco. "A jioor la.dv v.'ho was very s-.ick cam? when you w&i-o gc-ne. I lnnd-e one for her." So did. -Xsr.cy S'.air, posribly at the aga c-f fiig-^t, commit her first fovcsiy, and w<!S fully though forebodingly" foVgivej). aftrx rxlmoniition. Satwly '. Cariuiehsel roarsd with glea. "Her' morals are all tnil fii-,-;t," ,he said, "though Very -or.nd. But sha'Jl have _us in the pp&r farm a:ul herself in gaol if she kosps 'thiss up." She is as prodigal of feme as of money. Being set by tihe two fat-hsrs to play chcis with Dar.ver.s" Ga-iinichael for a guinea ,asdde. the wagai-jfoi- -the. nij-f tified Joek r by astounding, ilI-nta,ria'g&irient A , TJwxig, pi'eA?cd in private for. the' reason. , sW conie>j-es : "He's 'a man-child, 'and 'his father w-as looking on; it' would havA b'«-ri' it fair di?srace to ba bsaten by me 1 , a'grr?-," and young, f-couldin't do it, Jock. "sso gentleman oould !" A curiously muddled but, sinc'ereVtic-mpt to 'fe-a<*H ,Nanty orthodox , smnrty v *en.dect m the .fi-iicovsry pf a y.ji^Jn codfe.;alf h-'ev * own.^aikd terraed. >Ha- «GaminaTulinft»r^" ,

Among the laws by which she elected thus to live were the following : — "I roust love Jock Stair first of all created things, for he was my mother's friend and mine. "Since the Lord has cast tihe poor from him, I niust -do wihat I can for them. "I must not be afraid of . aJiy living thing, for no genitleman can show forth fear. ""I must not wish Hemry Macrsth from Stak, tho' he snuffles and his ears are large, for he was here before I was, and is very riteeous. "I must rot swear, tho' Sandy does, and to say dam is not godly for a girl." But the complete education of Nancy Stair calls fcr fuller comment. (To bs continued.)