6_th_ _December_ 1893.
‘_October_ 25, 1685.—At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of
the King’s Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last,
obtain a clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person
of Janet Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having
retired out of the way upon information, he got an order against
Andrew Pringle, her uncle, to produce her. . . . But she having
married Andrew Pringle, her uncle’s son (to disappoint all their
designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen years old.’ But my boy is
to be fourteen, so I extract no further.—FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.
‘_May_ 6, 1685.—Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all,
and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving
security for 7000 marks.’—i. 372.
No, it seems to have been _her_ brother who had succeeded.
* * * * *
MY DEAR CHARLES,—The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can be
thrown on it. I prefer the girl’s father dead; and the question is, How
in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to ‘apprehend’
and his power to ‘sell’ her in marriage?
Or—might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles,
and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?
A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it will
be the corner-stone of my novel.
This is for—I am quite wrong to tell you—for you will tell others—and
nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish and
reappear again like shapes in the clouds—it is for _Heathercat_: whereof
the first volume will be called _The Killing Time_, and I believe I have
authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to be called (I
believe) _Darien_, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal of truck:—
_Darien Papers_,
_Carstairs Papers_,
_Marchmont Papers_,
_Jerviswoode Correspondence_,
I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if
there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to
have—the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure
to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690–1700—a deuce of a want
of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of
Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also—I am
the daughter of the horse-leech truly—‘Black’s new large map of
Scotland,’ sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can
get the
_Caldwell Papers_,
they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work—but no, I
must call a halt. . . .
I fear the song looks doubtful, but I’ll consider of it, and I can
promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether
or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it’s an unco
business to _supply_ deid-heid coapy.