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 should hear herself discussed.
As she took her small body around the boxwood, lifting it up on the
toes at every step--a way she had when pleased--"You've raised up a
wonderful child for me, Sandy," I said, and I told him of the verses
she writ the day before.
"Aye," he answered, "I didn't tell ye of them, for I wanted that ye
should find out about her verses yourself. I've a book full of them,
and she but five. But after all's said and done," he went on, "'tis the
heart of her that's more wonderful than the head. Christmas a year back
I was walking out with her, and some shiftless beggars got in the path
and asked for money. 'In truth,' I answered, knowing what frauds they
were, 'I haven't a penny in the world!' I thought the child had let the
incident pass unnoticed, but that evening the door to my bedroom opened
and Nancy, in her white nightgown, walked in. She came to the
writing-table shyly, and after putting a large copper penny on the edge
of the table, pushed it toward me with her forefinger.
"'You tan have it,' she said; 'I tan dit anover.'
"There it is, the copper penny," he cried, with a laugh, though there
were tears in his eyes, showing me the end of his watch-fob from which
the bit of money hung.
"The dear little thing had thought I really had not a penny in the
world and had brought her only one to sacrifice upon the altar of our
friendship. Oh, Jock Stair," and the union between us spoke in the
words, "how are you and I to raise up a soul like this and keep it
unspotted from the world?"
As I stated at the beginning of my story, I have no intention of saying
a word of Nancy's charities or of her verse-making save when necessary
for the clearness of my tale, but I find the time has now come when
some mention of the first must be made. It could be judged from the
anecdote already told, of her bringing "her people" to Stair, that she
formed strong attachments; but as time went by I found that this
affection extended to almost everything that lived. She was a lawless
little body, going around the grounds at her own pleasure, and bringing
back some living thing at every expedition to be cared for at the
house. These findings included lame dogs, rabbits, cats, and 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 fish. "A boy," she repeated, every feature in her face
alight; "Father Michel's got him."
"For Heaven's sake, Nancy," I inquired, "what do you intend to do with
him?"
"Keep him," she answered.
Going down 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 appearance, carrying a fiddle, and evidently
forsaken by some strolling player. She had set her mind upon his
staying, and he stayed; but finding the trouble her accumulated
possessions were giving at Stair, she showed me within the week a bit
of her power to get her own way; a thought which afterward bore such
large results for the whole of Scotland.
The former lord, my honored father, had erected under some trees far
off by the burn water several small stone houses for the servants which
my beautiful Irish mother brought with her from her own country.
Because my bachelor ways had needed little service these dwellings had
gradually fallen into disuse and disrepair, the few serving people I
required finding abundant lodgment in the attic chambers. These tiny
houses, built of gray stone, with ivy growing around the windows, had
taken Nancy's fancy from the instant her eyes first lighted on them.
The evening before her sixth birthday, as we stood together watching
the sun go down, a thought for the following day came to me.
"And what do you want for your birthday, Little Flower!" I asked.
"The little houses," she said, leaning her head against me.
"What for?" I inquired, thinking perhaps that she believed them play
houses.
"Dame Dickenson, Father Michel, Uncle Ben----" she stopped.
"To live in?" I inquired.
"To keep," she answered quietly.
The more I thought it over the more pleased I became with the idea that
these devoted people, who gave their lives to Nancy, should be
rewarded. I was perhaps especially pleased at the thought of doing
something for Father Michel, of whom I would now be speaking.
He was at this time a young man, still under twenty-five, who had come,
none knew from what place, to live at the Cairn Mills with the dear old
priest who married Marian and me. What tragedy had been behind him none
knew, but Dickenson told me that from the time he first saw the child
his heart went out to her, and that after the meeting there was no
keeping him from the old inn, where he finally took up his residence as
one of the family.
Old Uncle Ben, whose sea tales were one of Nancy's chiefest joys, and
whose wooden leg was her greatest perplexity, I felt deserved some
recognition of his service, and, to shorten the telling, in less than a
month these houses were occupied as Nancy had desired they should
be--Father Michel being given the large one, with Nancy's dwarfed boy,
Dame Dickenson the next, and Uncle Ben becoming the proud occupant of a
third. It seemed a sort of child's play to me at first, and Mrs. Opie's
statement that I built these houses at this period for the work on the
Burnside, is entirely without foundation.
Some credit has been bestowed upon me as well for the working out of a
labor problem here, but it is honor undeserved, for the thing began in
the entirely unintentional manner which I have set down, and the
working out of it came at a later date through Nancy's thinking and the
zeal and goodness of Father Michel.[2]
[2] It was about this period that the "Lace School" was regularly
begun, which occurred by no plan of mine, but in the following
way: Sandy had had two young women from the north for house
service at Arran, and finding them unused to labor, proposed that
Dame Dickenson should teach them the Irish lace making which she
had learned in her own country. And in a short time there were
nine or ten young girls of the neighborhood under regular
instruction in this industry.