GPJdHT-GRnTLD rziece fyxmW Winivmit^ J ilrt^tg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME j FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 1891 W/Jpi- A./S'06¥ The date shows when this volume was taken. fiiTt'idUiaiT VMikr I itfHPHtMB^^QbfiA ^^^ books not in use 3r instruction or re- search are' limited to four weeks to all bor- rowers. Periodicals of a gen- eral character should be returned as soon as possible ; when needed beyond two weeks a special request should be made. All student borrow- ers are limited to two weeks, with renewal privileges, when the book is not needed by others. Books not needed during recess periods should be returned to the library, or arrange- ments made for their return during borrow- er's absence, if wanted. Books needed by more than one person belong on the reserve list. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013529239 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE LADY NAIRNE AND HER SON THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE BY HER GREAT GRAND-NIECE EDINBURGH & LONDON OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER 1894 CO ^.^%on^ PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, FOR OLIPHANT ANDERSON, & FERRIER EDINBURGH AND LONDON. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Lady Nairne and Her Son .... Frontispiece The Auld House of Gask . . . Page lo Portrait of Lord Nairne 34 Portrait of Baroness Nairne . . 35 Portrait of William Murray, last Lord Nairne 37 Facsimile of Lady Nairne's Handwriting . . 47 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE Vm^A ho can tell the power of music and of song ? Although the essence of time, they transcend time. As the wind or as the sunshine, their influence is everywhere, yet undefined. It may be like a breeze or a storm, a stray ray or the meridian glory. It is all around us. We are but the losers if our capacity be small. Oliver Wendell Holmes calls music a "bath for the soul." Shall we call it a tideless sea, or an atmosphere of light.'' For those who love solidity, music is like a temple or a shrine where the greatest in all ages have laid their offering, or at least inscribed their names, ere they passed on into 8 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS what is darkness to us and purer light to them. But though the singers pass on, what they were at their best remains in their song. The mother sings the lullaby at the cradle ; the " toddlin' wean" runs an errand to the nearest shop, humming it as it goes ; and thus a stream of song is set aflowing. We had grown up so loving and learning Lady Nairne's songs, that it was a special joy to stand, in the summer of 1893, near the spot, at once her birthplace and her grave, where, as another poet wrote, " Lady Nairne had walked and ridden, and loved and sung, till Strathearn, that made Caroline Oliphant so beautiful and such a poet, was made by her more lovely and lyric still." It was nearly fifty years by the calendar since the day that her eyes were closed to all that lovely land. Fifty years ! Carmina morte carent CAROLINA OLIPHANT BARONESS NAIRNE Born at Gask, 1766 Died at Gask, 1845 CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 9 So the inscription stands on her obeHsk, and the full, rich nature-life all around on that glorious summer day spoke of immortality for her as for her verse. We could think of how her life grew, — from the day she was named Caroline in honour of the exiled Prince Charles, — through the pretty " Miss Car " of the school- room, till she blossomed into the " Flower of Strathearn " ; and, better still, how her mind grew in her songs. "The auld pear tree" is there, and to her, as to it, a ring of age meant a year of growth. There is the winding Earn, the auld house, the auld dial ; but the sweet singer is awa' ! The subject of her song, more beautiful than ever, framed in the setting of this glorious summer, lives on ; and she lies sleeping. " Oh, the auld house, the auld house. What the' the rooms were wee ! Oh ! kind hearts were dwelling there, And baimies fu' o' glee ; The wild rose and the jessamine Still hang upon the wa' ; How mony cherish'd memories Do they, sweet flowers, reca' 1 10 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS Still flourishing the auld pear tree The bairnies liked to see, And oh, how often did they speir When ripe they a' wad be ! Dra-wn by Lady Nail-jte The voices sweet, the wee bit feet Aye rinnin' here and there, The merry shout — Oh ! whiles we greet To think we'll hear nae mair ! CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE ii The setting sun, the setting sun, How glorious it gaed doon ! The cloudy splendour raised our hearts To cloudless skies aboon I The auld dial, the auld dial. It tauld how time did pass ; The wintry winds hae dung it doon. Now hid 'mang weeds and grass." We have seen on French roads larger and lesser milestones, divisions and subdivisions ; so the fiftieth year seems like one of those larger milestones, a time to stop in this fast age of ours, and look at the writer of these songs from this distance, with the lights and shadows of well-nigh half a century. " Why is it that we never, never know The beauty of our treasures while they're ours? A little way removed must be the flower From where we breathe its perfume, ere we can See all its beauteous bloom and paint it so. A stone's cast from us must the sheltering tree Rise in its greenness, ere we can behold Its perfect form against the hill or sky. Too interwoven with our own heart strings, Too much a unison with our life's song. Is all that meets us in the object loved That we should well describe it. " 12 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS In a friend's house, when we got tired of the immediate surroundings, we looked through a telescope and read the lettering on the pier- head of the opposite coast. Shall we do so now ere the shore recedes further, looking at the outline of Lady Nairne's chequered life till she returned to Gask to die ? ''Buried among his works.' So the Danish guide said of Thorwaldsen's grave at Copen- hagen. All round the courtyard were the galleries, divided into little rooms, each con- taining a masterpiece, and he lay under a simple mound of ivy, with the words, " Bertel Thorwaldsen." No monument marked his grave. His works were his monument. Her monument is surely the songs she sang ; and we say of her, "Buried among her works"- — not of sculpture, but of song. The visit to the spot recalled many memories. As we wandered on the turf, we thought of those who had gone since we last stood there. The proprietor of the mansion, the sweet song- CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 13 Stress, the grandniece who made us sing the songs, and the brother whose ringing voice had blended its notes with ours, had all met above ! We returned at night to the lovely- villa on the Tay where our grandmother, Lady Nairne's niece, had told us many histories of her young days. We sometimes fear that the gentle art of story telling is dying out, or dis- appearing like the old hostelries on our deserted highroads. Long journeys by stage-coach and the more expensive postage of letters and absence of post- cards made stories a more essential part of the life in olden times ; and the gloamin' in Scotland, when it was more difficult to get the lights lit, when there were tinder-box and flint and steel instead of matches, favoured their growth. At anyrate, our grand- mother used to make the moments fly with her tales of bygone days. Lady Nairne had watched her sister, Mrs. Stewart, my grandmother's mother, pass away. After the oil-painting of Bonskeid had been 14 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS placed opposite her bed, our grandmother, then a schoolgirl, was eagerly expected. " Take the storeroom key and have it brightened," she said to her httle maid Christie;^ "Miss Stewart must find it in good order." Lady Nairne used to say, "Ask me no questions about the visible glory that seemed to encircle my beloved sister in that solemn hour." Another story flits across our minds as we write, like a shadow on the wall. It must have been intended for an older listener, for we thought it pretty, but did not take in the meaning. A girl was in doubt as to whether she should accept or refuse a lover. " Gang and listen to what the kirk bells say," was the shrewd advice. "Well, what do they say ? " the girl was asked when she came back. " The bells said, ' Tak' him, Jenny; tak' him, Jenny!'" These and many of the Gask stories were told in a bow window * She still survives at the age of ninety-seven, and lives not far from the South Inch in Perth, where she delights to tell these old histories. CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 15 overlooking the Tay, with the Grampians beyond. There is now a railway along the whole road between Springland and Bonskeid, the two homes of our childhood ; but when we were young we used to leave the train at Dunkeld, near where the Wolf of Badenoch (whose descendant had married Lady Nairne's eldest sister) lies buried, and enter the stage-coach close by the lovely grounds of Murthly Castle, belonging to the Stewart line. It was in these grounds that Lady Nairne passed through the crisis of her life. " She was on a visit," my mother has told us, "to the old Castle of Murthly, where an English clergyman had also arrived. He was a winner of souls. At morning worship she was in her place with the household, and listened to what God's ambassador said on the promise, ' Him that Cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.' Faith grasped it. From that hour she never had one doubt of God's love to her in Christ. 1 6 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS But that forenoon she was seen no more. Her fair face was spoiled with weeping when she again appeared. Her eye had caught the glory of the Son of God, and burned with love to Him of whom she henceforth could say, 'Whose I am and whom I serve.' " When not beside the Tay, it was within sound of the rushing Tummel, in the very heart of Perthshire, that we eagerly listened to our mother's tales. Hers was a magician's wand. The land she led us into was an en- chanted country. The scenery around helped the artist story-teller. When reduced to paper the tales may seem dull and cold, like lantern- slides without the magic light. Later years tell us that it is not so much the stories them- selves as the listeners which make these old tales live. Life for us older people puts in the punctuation, even the pronunciation, but to a child the web is woven quicker than we can supply the flax. Our fancy loves to linger over the long summer days, where the country CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 17 around reminded my mother of the happy summers spent on the Continent as a girl of fifteen with her grand -aunt, Lady Nairne. The bound volume of that loved singer's Lays from Strathearn was never far away. It seemed to illustrate the country round. The rowan tree, watched by day at one end of the Bonskeid bowling-green, with its crimson berries and its golden leaves, was sung of at night with childish ardour. " O ! Rowan tree, O ! Rowan tree, thou'lt aye be dear to me Intwin'd thou art wi' mony ties o' hame and infancy. Thy leaves were aye the first o' spring, thy flow'rs the simmer's pride ; There was nae sic a bonny tree, in a' the countrie side. O ! Rowan tree. How fair wert thou in simmer time, wi' a' thy clusters white ! How rich and gay thy autumn dress, wi' berries red and bright ! On thy fair stem were mony names, which now nae mair I see. But they're engraven on my heart ^forgot they ne'er can be 1 O ! Rowan tree." 2 1 8 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS In the same way, the bonnie burn beyond was at night arrested in its course and captured in song. " Bonnie ran the burnie doon, Wand'rin' and windin' ; Sweetly sang the birds aboon, Care never mindin'. The gentle simmer wind Was their nursie saft and kind, And it rockit them, and rockit them, All in their bowers sae hie. The mossy rock was there. And the water-lily fair. And the little trout would sport aboot All in the sunny beam.'' If a Highland piper appeared on the gravel, it was easy to make him into a hundred. A child loves multiplication, subtraction to it is not so easy. And the voices pealed out the melody — "Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an a', Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a' ; We'll up an' gie them a blaw, a blaw, Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'." If a stray lamb wandered past, we had its CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 19 picture in her grand-aunt's lines, which my mother loved to repeat — " The mitherless lammie ne'er miss'd its ain mammie, We tentit it kindly by nicht and by day ; The baimies made game o't, it had a biythe hame o't, Its food was the gowan, wi' dewdrops o' May." It was her own vivid imagination that made those evenings so delightful. She used to say when no longer able to travel : " Send me a telegram, that I may fancy it all. Even in my strong days imaginations of a place were some- times better to me than the reality." If we were beside her putting up a parcel, as once for a first-born child, she, who could not do a prosaic thing, scattered a handful of fresh snow- drops over the cardboard box to make more artistic the baptism-robe with the stiff lace and the insertion from the laundry-folds ! She said of her grand-aunt : " Poetry burned in her soul higher than any flame but faith ; and she was always trying how to send home a divine truth on the wing of a fine thought." 20 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS Lady Nairne's physician at Brussels had advised that, as far as possible, the widow, whose only son lay dying, should have some one with her — especially in her carriage on her journeys — who did not remind her of her loss. It was thus that my mother became her constant companion on the Continent for two years. Long years afterwards, when the boxes were brought out at Bonskeid for the autumn flitting south, she would recall one of the sayings of the travellers on that memor- able journey, "We always get very honest at packing-time." At such times Lady Nairne's maid, Henriette, was in her element ; for, like George Sand's Marie, and Michael Angelo's Urbino, and many another attendant unknown to fame, she was the faithful companion and friend for many years of her beloved mistress. Dominique, her son's servant, had fitted up a banc a volontd in the front part of the carriage to contain her books, work, and provisions for the day on the long drives. It was also a foot-rest. CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 21 Together, my mother and she crossed the Stelvio and dined at the highest habitable hut in Europe, where Lady Nairne "found the air very invigorating." At Munich she met Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg with the Prince Royal of Bavaria at quiet parties, and kept in her writing-table the invitation to our Queen's Coronation, with the young Sovereign's sig- nature—a model of clear and bold writing. She kept a book of extracts, and never read without taking longer or shorter notes of striking passages. Amongst the things to be disposed of at packing-time were articles of Lady Nairne's own work, purchased or rather bought back by her nieces at a bazaar for the poor. In talking to my mother she said : " These pur- chases remind me of the time when your dear grandmother sent her garnets from Perth to Ravelstone, that Aunt Keith might dispose of them and buy a handsome folio edition of Scott's Commentary of the Bible for her to 2 2 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS present to your grandpapa. Mr. Keith noted the jeweller's name, recovered the garnets, and kept them for your mamma." These garnets, now lying near me as I write, were given to me by my grandmother, who also told their history. My mother could never forget the shock which she got on reaching Brussels in 1837, hoping to hear that Lord Nairne was better, to be told instead that the funeral carriagfes had just left the courtyard of the Rue de Louvain, nor her first sight of the beloved authoress exemplifying her own song — " Our bonnie bairn's there, John." She once wrote : " It was a cold December night. The north wind, more dry and sifting than in Britain, was felt in the large apartment in spite of the open stove and the screen that surrounded her sofa. Lady Nairne sat at a writing-table. The green shade of the lamp concealed in a great measure the wrinkled face and blood-shot eyes ; and she looked still lovely, CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 23 and much younger in her seventy-second year than one would have expected. Her cap, of Queen Mary shape, had a large white crape handkerchief thrown over it. She made the kindest and most minute inquiries about every- thing at home, and when the effort became too great, she gave me a book to read. " She listened with interest to Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, which recalled to her the scenes and many of the personages with whom, during her residence in Edinburgh, she had been familiar. One evening, while reading aloud to her, we came upon a note discussing the authorship of ' The Land o' the Leal.' To the young reader it was some- what like going to the cannon's mouth to read it to her, and if blushes could betray the knowledge of a secret. Lady Nairne's observant eye must have seen them. " I never saw her allow herself to laugh heartily but once, and it was not long after our first meeting. She had been repeating 24 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS some lines of which she said she had often tried to discover the author. On my insisting that his name was in a collection of poetry, she said, 'You must bring it to me next night' She did not forget, and I told her the name of the author was 'Anonymous. When a very little child I had got it into my mind that this was a clever man who wrote most of the pretty things we learned : not pronouncing the word properly to myself, the error had not been discovered, and the existence of ' Anon ' was as firmly believed in. To have made such a blunder before most people would have been a lasting humiliation, but not with her. How true it is that one feels most at ease in the presence of a great mind, and never hurt or awkward ! He who has most mastered his subject will often most patiently explain its rudiments to the ignorant. " She was kinder than ever, and said, ' Now tell me, dear Maggy, what collection of hymns do you use .'' ' CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 25 " ' Sacred Poetry, and Montgomery's Chris- tian Psalmist' " ' And where do you learn your hymns when at Springland ? ' " ' In a crooked little beech tree, just like an arm-chair, after breakfast till church time on Sundays ; and other days, when there is time to go further, up at the long stone seat on the bank of Annaty Burn, where it runs into the current of the Tay, between us and the Scone grounds. " ' The view is very fine there, is it not ? ' " ' We never miss going on the fine sunset evenings to see it over the Grampians ; with the clouds and the broad river, and just in front of a long little island ; the sky looks like a way up to heaven.' '"What hymn did you last learn there?' she asked. " ' A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow : Long had I watched the glory moving on. O'er the still radiance of the lake below.' 26 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS " 'Just a place to learn hymns about heaven at ; they should never be learned as a task. And at Bonskeid, which is the favourite seat ? ' " ' Up in the west wood where you painted the house from. But last summer our gover- ness found it dull, and we sat often on a little hill where she could see the post-runner pass, and the tourists' carriages, and the carriers' carts. She got a fright with a roe deer and an adder, and did not like the wood after.' " ' I hope they do not oblige you to write verses of your own, as some are made to do." " ' No.' " ' And you never tried ? ' " ' Never.' "'True poetry is involuntary; it will force its own way. You and I must have many talks about these wonderful men, Anonymous and Anon, who have between them caused me more delight than any authors. I must tell you a story of our youth at Gask, where the mistake of a word not only caused merriment CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 27 for us at the time, but ever since. Aunt Harriet had got a special summons by a messenger on horseback to Athole to go to see Lady Lude, who was said to be so ill that if she wished to see her in life she must come instantly. Aunt Harriet gave a letter, ordering a large chaise, to the horseman to deliver in Perth on his arrival there, nine miles distant, as you know. We all set to making pre- parations for her journey. May (your grand- mother) was the director, as in everything else, and we were all seated round Aunt Harriet in her grief, wondering how the chaise she had ordered (she had written to Perth that the biggest to be had should be sent immediately) was so long in coming, as the journey to Blair Athole was tedious and it was getting late. Suddenly the door of the room opened, and two men entered carrying an enormous cheese ! Aunt Harriet was always a great laugher, but this time (owing to the tension on the nerves caused by sorrowful preparations, parting with 28 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS us, and the illness of her sister) she was seized with an immoderate fit. Tears even ran down, the more her ludicrous mistake in spelling became plain to her. She without power to explain, the two men with the cheese on the floor between them, we gazing in utter wonder, formed a scene we could never forget. The journey was given up till next morning.' " With that tour abroad were continually bound up memories of a dear old lady whom we all called " Cousin," Margaret Harriet Steuart, who was the daughter of Mrs. Steuart of Dalguise — Lady Nairne's sister Amelia. In a green old age her store of memories is very rich. When the writer was a child. Miss Steuart was living at Wynberg, Cape of Good Hope, with her brother the Chief Justice of the colony. Our mother used to dictate to us letters to the distant cousin, and now she alone is left of the group who spent that time together. She was a reverent observer of CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 29 Lady Nairne's times of deep sorrow, and saw how the energy of the mountain torrent fell into the deep lake of later life — not to expend itself in selfish idleness, but in self-forgetfulness, let- ting the surface be frozen over to bear up com- panions in sorrow who would else have sunk. As much speaking tired her, we asked her to put down on paper her memories of her aunt, Lady Nairne ; and we received, in the form of a letter, this precious piece of chronology. It is written by a hand that was learning to hold a pencil when the century began, and carries into its closing years much of the fineness of work and deftness of touch, so hard to attain in the bustle of our railway age. At ninety- seven she paints, plays and embroiders ; and has lately sent a little work through the press. She remembers Trafalgar and Waterloo, has entertained Sir Walter Scott with her music, and tells how in the daytime Miss Scott and she would shut the shutters that they might tell one another ghost stories in the dark. 30 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS When all the rage is for old furniture, old pictures, old wine, here is a manuscript not with yellow, mouldy markings, but precious ; it is rare to get chronology from so old a living memory, reckonings from such an old ledger. She corroborates the accounts of Lady Nairne's wish for secrecy, and how she wrote under the title of Mrs. Bogan of Bogan for the Scottish Minstrel. She acts the part of critic too, wondering how anyone could say "The Land o' the Leal" was composed in old age, when it was written in Lady Nairne's prime. But we leave her to tell her own story. " My earliest recollections of my Aunt Nairne are of spending a winter with her at Montrose, when I was about seven years old. She was very fond of children ; and in the evenings my eldest brother John and I were always allowed by her to cut out paper, paste, paint, or make any mess we pleased ; and we were much annoyed when nurse came and proclaimed that it was bedtime ! Then my CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 31 dear mother and I paid a short visit to her at Portobello. It was then that they made the purchase of Caroline Cottage, now, I am told, called Nairne Lodge. My next recollection is a very sad one — soon after my mother's death. This time I went with my Aunt Margaret Oliphant, afterwards Mrs Keith of Dunnottar. Aunt Nairne asked if I remembered with whom I had come before ! The answer was tears. "Major Nairne, as well as his lady, was always extremely kind to me. She called me ' Quiet Maggy,' for I was not loquacious in those days, being rather shy. In June 1808, my Cousin William was born in Hope Street, Edinburgh, my aunt and I being then in the house. The next winter was spent by the Nairnes at 43 Queen Street, Edinburgh, and I lived with them for two years, going daily to school. In July 1813, I accompanied Major and Lady Nairne in a cutter bound for the Shetland Isles. To them I went ; but poor Aunt Nairne was so ill at sea that we had to 32 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS lay to at Peterhead whilst she and her boy were put ashore, and they both went to St. Andrews by land, where they joined your great- grandmother, my Aunt Stewart of Bonskeid. " My next visit to Aunt Nairne was at Holyrood House, where her husband had the royal apartments for some years, until His Majesty George IV. thought fit to show him- self in Scotland. It was a very pleasant dwelling. The side of the square was gloomy, but the windows of the living rooms all looked to the Park and Arthur's Seat. The chambers were of a very large size, except two smaller ones which were divided off by high screens. These were hung with very fine old tapestry, whereon were depicted immense human forms with the heads of toads. One of these chambers was my bedroom when I visited the Palace, and I confess to very eerie sensations as I looked at them at night. One anteroom was so very spacious that it was divided off into several, and allotted to the servants. The CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 33 whole royal apartments were done up and beautified for the King ; and to the very great amusement of my young cousin, the throne was placed exactly where the cook's bed had stood 1 In 1830 Lord Nairne, whose forfeited title had been restored, died at Caroline Cottage. " In 1834 we all went to Italy and spent the greater part of the winter at Rome. Aunt Nairne went sometimes to the wonderful gal- leries, and I think she once ascended the out- side of St. Peter's to see the village on the roof Mrs. Keith and I came home in October 1835, but we joined in the autumn of the following year at Berlin, and there my poor cousin caught the cold which proved fatal in December 1837. " I have found several mistakes in written memoirs of my aunt. Their son was not delicate, neither was it on account of his health that he and his mother went abroad. The cold caught at Berlin was the beginning of his illness. " I was with her later on at Pau and Eaux 3 34 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS Chaudes. I remember staying in a very dilapidated chateau, where the servants were so frightened by mysterious noises that we LORD NAtRNE BEFORE HIS RESTORATlOy had to leave sooner than we intended. The society in these out-of-the-way places is very primitive, the ladies seldom wearing bonnets. CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 35 One nice, elderly dame had a very lively recollection of the Peninsular War, and told me that when the troops were all about, they CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE nde OLIPHANT OF GASK applied to the British for protection, as they placed more confidence in them than in their own soldiers. The winter that we spent at 36 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS Pau was the time of the Civil War in Spain, and the defeated Carlists came to Pau and had small pensions from the French. After this we were in the Pyrenees again, at Biarritz and Paris. It was to that city, in the spring of 1843, that James Oliphant of Gask came and took my aunt home to Gask, as you know, to die." With this quaint piece of writing, came the three miniatures, of which we reproduce photo- graphs. On the back of each was written the name of the person — " Caroline, Baroness Nairne, nde Oliphant of Gask " ; " Lord Nairne, before his restoration"; "William Murray, last Lord Nairne, died 1837, aged 29." Our last summer's visit to Gask made this document and all our previous information glow with a new interest. In and out through that avenue gate had Neil Gow passed with his fiddle to charm the youthful occupants, and set one of the company composing lines to sing to his catching airs. Above one of her CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 37 songs, "Caller Herrin'," is printed, "Air by Neil Gow." Since the above was written. Madame Antoinette Sterling has told us how niLLlAM MURRAY last LORD NAIRNS she met lately the great-grandson of Neil Gow in Hobart, Tasmania. He spoke of his ancestor having composed the tune of " Caller 38 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS Herrin' ! " Many of the airs to which Burns wrote songs had been of the old fiddler's composition, and she was shown a drawing of Neil Gow fiddling to Burns sitting on a bench, with Mrs. Burns sitting on a chair at the end of the bench. Both Madame Antoinette Sterling's friend and his son inherit the musical gifts of the family. When a friend thought Lady Nairne was writing love-letters the letters were poems. If the ruin of the " Auld House " could speak, it would tell us how the cause of its being pulled down was the rats eating into the cradle of the baby, and how, when the Bible was removed in state from the old house to the new, the door gave way on its hinges ! My mother used to tell how Lady Nairne was born into a nursery where two others besides herself had been named for Prince Charles Edward — Charles, Charlotte, Caroline ; and how these children prayed from prayer- books on which the names of the exiled family CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 39 were pasted over those of the reigning house. And then, how the beautiful CaroHne had learned her lessons under the tuition of the old Abbd Maitland, a Non-conformist clergyman, and become an adept at all she tried. To Gask she returned to die. In a cool ante-room of the new house, in her last days, she might still be found taking her invalid's walk. There she was, passing and repassing the bust of her darling son, and stopping as often to gaze on it, then replacing the white handkerchief that covered it to keep it pure. Yet there was gladness in the retrospect, for of him she wrote : "I have not a single regret about William's upbringing. He was trained for the Kingdom, whither he has gone." The thoughts in her last song, written in 1842, would be uppermost as she looked back on her long pilgrimage : "Would you be young again? So would not I — One tear to memory giv'n, Onward I'd hie. 40 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS Life's dark flood forded o'er, All but at rest on shore, Say, would you plunge once more. With home so nigh ? Where are they gone, of yore My best delight ? Dear and more dear, tho' now Hidden from sight. Where they rejoice to be. There is the land for me ; Fly time, fly speedily ; Come life and light ! " On long winter evenings in our town house in the Square, the sight of the oil painting, by Sir John Watson Gordon, of Lady Nairne and her son over the mantelpiece (of which we reproduce a photograph in our frontispiece), would recall to our mother her second visit to Brussels, when the door was slammed in her face by new occupants, and the visit, after fifteen years to Lord Nairne's grave, with the stone on which she had seen the inscription carved — "WILLIAM, LORD NAIRNE, Aged 29 Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord." CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 41 Here are the lines found in Lady Nairne's desk after her death, which bear on this season of sorrow — " Go, call for the mourners, and raise the lament. Let the tresses be torn, and the garments be rent; But weep not for him who is gone to his rest. Nor mourn for the ransom'd, nor wail for the blest. Their sun is not set, but is risen on high, Nor long in corruption their bodies shall lie. Then let not the tide of thy griefs overflow. Nor the music of heaven be discord below — Rather, loud be the song, and triumphant the chord. Let us joy for THE dead who have died in the Lord Go, call for the mourners, and raise the lament. Let the tresses be torn, and the garments be rent ; But give to the living thy passion of tears. Who walk in this valley of sadness and fears — Who are pressed by the combat, in darkness are lost, By the tempest are beat, on the billows are tost. Oh, weep not for them who shall sorrow no more, Whose warfare is ended, whose combat is o'er — Let the song be exalted, triumphant the chord, And rejoice for the dead who have died in the Lord. In turning over some papers, we came upon the copy of a poem in Lady Nairne's own writing, where a verse is transposed in different 42 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS order from the way the poem stands in her songs. The paper Is brown and mouldy, and the writing hasty. It looks like a first sketch of the published one called " Songs of my Native Land." To my mother, who had been teaching a class In the Tower at Springland, and who had told her of a new hymn which the children had been learning to sing, she said, " Repeat It." " There is a Happy Land " was the hymn. She listened attentively to the close, and said — "It is pretty, very sweet, but might be clearer." It looks as if she had dashed off this " Parody," as she calls It according to the custom of the time, Im- mediately after. Later, on hearing the tune or seeing the hymn In print, she found that she had not caught the metre. In producing a second copy of her poem, she at the same time wrote a new verse, and transposed the second and third stanzas. Here is the original sketch, title and all, as it appears in the MS. — CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 43 "PARODY OF 'I'M COME FROM A HAPPY LAND.'i " I'm bound for a happy land, Where care is unknown ; I am bound for a happy land, Where love reigns alone. Come, come, and fly with me. Love's banquet waits for thee, Joy, joy, and ecstasy, for evermore. Weary pilgrims there have rest. Their wanderings o'er ; There the slave, no more oppressed, Hails Freedom's shore. Sin will there no more deface ; Sickness, pain, and sorrow cease. Ending in eternal peace And songs of joy. Strains of my native land That thrill the soul, Pouring the magic of your self-control. Oft has your minstrelsy Soothed the pang of misery, Winging swift thought away, To realms on high. ^ Lady Naime, having heard the hymn only once repeated, evidently mistook its title, and thought it was " I'm Come from a Happy Land," instead of " There is a Happy Land." 44 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS There, where the seraphs sing In cloudless day ; There, where their higher praise The ransomed pay — Hymns of the happy land, Chanted by the heavenly band, Who, who can understand How sweet ye be ! " The final form, in which the song was presented to the world, has quite a different turn given to it. It is headed, " Songs of my Native Land." " Songs of my native land, To me how dear ! Songs of my infancy, Sweet to mine ear ! Entwined with my youthful days, Wi' the bonny banks and braes, Where the winding burnie strays Murmuring near. Strains of my native land That thrill the soul, Pouring the magic of Your self-control ! Often has your minstrelsy Soothed the pang of misery, Winging rapid thought away To realms on high. CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 45 Weary pilgrims there have rest, Their wand'rings o'er ; There the slave, no more oppressed, Hails Freedom's shore. Sin shall there no more deface, Sickness, pain, and sorrow cease, Ending in eternal peace. And songs of joy ! There, where the seraphs sing In cloudless day, — There, where the higher praise The ransom'd pay. Soft strains of the happy land. Chanted by the heavenly band. Who can fully understand How sweet ye be !" As we look on her writing, we wonder why the veil of secrecy was so closely drawn, and that her poetry did not rend it asunder. But her will was determined. Only a very few besides my mother and grandmother knew who wrote the songs. From the friends who looked in of an evening on the Continent, as was then the custom, she kept her secret even to the end. For example, when she was asked to write in 46 THE SCOTTISH SONGSTRESS an album, and someone looked eagerly to see what she had written, thinking that now the poet would have revealed herself, the lines set down were not her own but Montgomery's. It had been the same with the visitors whom she met at Ravelstone, near Edinburgh. Here, as recorded by Dr. Rogers in his Life and Sougs of the Baroness Nairnc, guests were wont to arrive early each Saturday. After lunching on hotch-potch, cocky-leeky, and haggis, they took dessert out of doors, under the old forest trees. After tea, music and singing began. A young lady sang a ballad, but could not finish all the verses. A visitor told her to go to the end of the room where she would find a lady who would finish the song. It was Lady Nairne. They became staunch friends, and to her Lady Nairne con- fided, some years after, that she had penned "The Land o' the Leal," adding, with a smile, " I have not even told Nairne, lest he blab." It was said that her husband's recovery of the CAROLINE BARONESS NAIRNE 47 '^^^ ^