Nancy Stair Part 24

It was on the afternoon of this third day that a girl pa.s.sed the window near which Burns sat, and beckoning to him, he slammed out into the storm, with no prefacing word to his act whatever, leaving Nancy staring after him in amazement, as she said to Mr. Hamilton:

"Do you not think his manners are strange?"

"The Edinburgh people say that he had them straight from his Maker,"

Mr. Hamilton answered, evading an opinion of his own.

"It's no saying much for the breeding of the Almighty," she answered, off-hand, with a smile, and she held silence concerning the matter, although it was near upon four days before Burns entered the inn door again, his face pale and haggard, his eyes sunken, and lines of dissipation upon his handsome face, which every one by courtesy pa.s.sed over uncommented. He brought a volume of Shenstone with him, which he laid before Nancy as a gift.

"I am bringing you one of the great of the earth," he said, gloomily regarding the book, and Nancy, who read his thoughts and wanted from the heart to cheer him, said:

"I whiles wonder at you, Mr. Burns, and the way you go about admiring every tinker-peddler who tosses a rhyme together. Ye've no sense of your own value at times. Do you know," she went on, fair glorious to see in her enthusiasm glowering down at him--"Do you know that when this man Shenstone's grave is as flat to the earth as my hand, and his name forgot, people will be building monuments to you and raising schools for your memory. Why," she cried, in an ecstasy, "'tis you that have made our old mother Scotland able to hold up her head and look the whole world in the face when the word 'Poetry' is called."

"Ye think so?" he asked, the tears big in his eyes, his gloom put behind him. "It's music to hear ye praise me so," and he rose and leaned against the mantel-shelf, his face irradiated by its usual expression.

"Perhaps," he began with some hope, "when I say farewell to rakery once and for all, I may make something fine yet. Most men, Mistress Stair, shake hands with that irresponsible wench called Pleasure, but I have dallied too long, I fear, in her intoxicating society. Aye!" he finished, "Wisdom's late upon the road!"[5]

[5] It is strange to note that there is scarce a word spoken by Burns in all of Lord Stair's ma.n.u.script which can not be found directly or indirectly in the poet's prose or verse--EDITOR.

"Let's make a poem of it! It sounds like one!" she cried, moving toward the spinet.

"Take your own gate," says Burns, laughing; "I'll follow!"

"I'll take the first lines," she said gayly. "'Twill throw the brunt of the rhyming on you."

"You're o'er thoughtful," Burns laughed back at her, and Nancy began rhyming to an old tune the thought they had pa.s.sed between them, with Burns ready with his rhymes before her lines were entirely spoken:

_Nancy_

"At break o' day, one morn o' May, While dew lay silverin' all the lea";

_Burns_

"A la.s.sie fair, wi' gowden hair Came laughing up the glen to me."

_Nancy_

"Her face was like the hawthorn bloom, Her eyes twa violets in a mist,"

_Burns_

"Her lips were roses of the June, The sweetest lip's that e'er were kissed."

_Nancy_

"'O, what's your name and where's your hame?

My sweetest la.s.sie, tell me true.'"

_Burns_

"'My name is Pleasure,' sir, she said, 'And I hae come to live with you.'"

_Nancy_

"She took my face between her hands, And sat her down upon my knee."

_Burns_

"She put her glowing lips to mine, And oh, but life was sweet to me."

_Nancy_

"Wi' mony a song we roved along My arm all warm about her waist."

_Burns_

"The hours drunk wi' love's golden wine Unheeded ane anither chased."

"Ah!" Nancy cried here, "That's the Burns touch! I could never have done that!"

_Nancy_

"Her hair's gay gold, in many a fold, Unheeded on my shoulder lay."

_Burns_

"Her heart beat on my very own, And life and love were one that day."

_Nancy_

"When noon was highest up in air, An ancient man came on the road."

_Burns_

"And when he saw my loving fair, His eyes wi' fiercest anger glowed."

_Nancy_

"'And who is this,' he cried to me, 'That you have ta'en wi' you to dwell?'"

_Burns_

"'Her name is Pleasure,' sir, said I, 'And oh, I'm sure she loves me well.'"

_Nancy_

"'Rise up,' he cried, 'no more defer To leave a wench not over nice.'"

_Burns_