Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“
[graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

ALEXANDER FERGUSON,

ANNIE LAURIE'S HUSBAND

FROM AN OLD PRINT

time they had been sung to a tune long since discarded. In 1825 Allan Cunningham transcribed the verses, with trifling alterations, for his "Songs of Scotland," and it was from finding them there that Lady John Scott had the idea of recasting them. I quote from a letter of her own, dated 1899, as follows:

It is no trouble to tell you my share in "Annie Laurie." I wrote the music originally to another old ballad. I was staying at Marchmont (when my sister, Lady H. Campbell, was alive), & one day, in the library, I took Allan Cunningham's poetry, & I thought my tune would just suit his ballad of "Annie Laurie." I did not like his second verse, which begins, "She 's backit like a peacock," so I altered it to what it is at present. I added the third verse, "Like dew on the gowan lying." I then sang it to poor Sir Hugh & my sister to see if they thought it worth writing down. They liked it. I did write it down. After the Crimean War I gave it to Lonsdale [a London music seller] to publish for a bazaar for the widows & orphans of the soldiers who had been killed.

Here we have, in a nutshell, the story of how the modern song was called into being, and how its tune was made.

It was in the year 1835 that Lady John Scott wrote her version of the song, and although it was published, with the music,

in an Edinburgh collection in 1838, she withheld her name until 1854, when she published it with other songs. There seems to have been no particular reason for hiding the authorship. But nearly all Scottish ladies of "family" used to write anonymously when they wrote at all. A reward was actually offered for the discovery of the authorship of "Auld Robin Gray," written by Lady Lindsay. "The Flowers of the Forest" was published anonymously by Miss Jane Elliot; and Lady Nairne enjoyed the joke of hearing "The Land o' the Leal" conjecturally attributed to Burns.

An

Lady John Scott has as much right to be called the author of "Annie Laurie" as Burns has to be called the author of "Auld Lang Syne" and many another old song which he touched up and saved from oblivion. But she was not at all anxious to claim the distinction. She was a real Scottish gentlewoman, "all of ye olden time," though she died as recently as 1900. Born Alicia Anne Spottiswood in 1810, she belonged to one of the oldest families in the south of Scotland. ancestor, John Spottiswood, went to France in 1558 to be present at the marriage of Mary Stuart to the dauphin. His son, again, was the famous Archbishop Spottiswood who crowned Charles I at Holyrood in 1625. Lady John was of the seventh generation from the archbishop. In 1836 she married Lord John Scott, the Duke of Buccleuch's only brother. Lord John died suddenly in 1860, and the widow was left disconsolate, with no children to comfort her.

[blocks in formation]

There

With

band were still by her side. His chair was set out for him at every meal; when she traveled, his luggage went with her own; she wrote letters to him as if he were on a journey. His hats and sticks remained in the hall; his dressing-room was seen exactly as he left it. was no morbidness about all this. a healthy mind, Lady John's motto at all times and in every relation of life was, "Hand [hold] fast by the past." She was a great stickler for old-fashioned ways. Instead of putting up a notice to "Shut the gate," she had it in the vernacular "Steek the gett." A farmer on her estate, objecting to the name of "Howlet's Ha'," altered it to the English equivalent of "Owl's Hall," and was promptly ordered to revert to the original designation or quit the place. She always burned peats in preference to coal, and kept a grinding mill when everything else of the kind had long since vanished. The "guisards" at New-Year time were requested to come and act their "plays" before her and her visitors; and on Handsel Monday she would herself set out and seek her cakes at the homes of her servants, in the words of the old rhyme:

ANNIE LAURIE

FROM AN OLD PRINT

My feet 's cauld,

my shoon 's thin, Gie 's my cakes an' let me rin.

Never lived a more perfervid Scot. "I would rather stay in a pigsty in Scotland than in a palace in England," she said.

Such was the author of the popular version of "Annie Laurie," the composer of its tune. Surviving her husband for forty years, she passed away, at the age of ninety, in March, 1900, on the sixty-fourth anniversary of her wedding-day.

[graphic]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

BROOK

ROOKFIELD, on the authority of "The Morning Democrat's" social column, was on the qui vive: Charley Brinton had come home from Harvard with an unexpected fiancée and the fiancée's mother, and nobody knew how old John Brinton was going to take it. Reflect that old John Brinton was to Brookfield what a sort of composite DiogenesCroesus would have been to Sinope, and you will admit that the "Democrat" was not overstating the case.

The dingy little cottage on Grove Street that had sheltered the twenty-odd years of John Brinton's widowerhood somewhat grudgingly received Charles and his guests. It had the air of doing most things grudgingly, however, probably contracted from Mrs. Mallet, the colored housekeeper, who came in by the day, fried monotonous, indigestible meals, and made a faint pretense of keeping the house in order. Under urging from Charles, she prepared a supper of fried chicken on the evening of the ladies' arrival, removed a modicum of the ancient dust, and put a

vase of nasturtiums in the middle of the round, red-clothed table.

John Brinton, making no exception for the exceptional circumstances, came home just in time to take his place at the head of the table. In response to a telegram from his son, he had neglected his business long enough to meet the ladies at the station, telephone to Mrs. Mallet, and send them out to Grove Street in a carriage. He greeted them unsmilingly when they came to the supper-table, and solemnly served the chicken. When everybody except himself had been served, he pushed his chair back from the table, called to Mrs. Mallet, and requested her to fry some bacon and eggs for him.

In the midst of the sensational silence that followed this request, Mrs. Powell spoke.

"I'm so sorry we did n't have just your usual supper," she said. "I understand that Brookfield is famous for its bacon and eggs."

"You may have some, too, if you care to wait, ma'am," said Brinton, surprised

into ironical politeness; and he really cessity of a reply; "but I 've always been looked at her for the first time.

She was inclined to be plump, with the comfortable plumpness of middle age. Her pleasant, decided facial lines and large, quick gray eyes suggested that she could be both audacious and proper at the same time. It is a prerogative granted to certain very sensible, well-trained natures.

"Thank you; then I think I shall," she said, pushing away her plate with a firm, competent hand.

"Mrs. Mallet," called Brinton, “make it two orders of bacon and eggs. Will you have three eggs or four, Mrs. Powell?"

But there was something a little daunted in the very assuredness with which he delivered the order. He had been "got around"; his declaration of independence had fallen flat. He was obliged to establish his acquaintance with the lady on a new basis, and the effort confused him.

"Your son has told me a great deal about you, you see, Mr. Brinton," said Mrs. Powell, brightly, stepping into the breach. "I think that was one of the main reasons why I came to Brookfield. I am really very much interested in you." "There is nothing about me to be in terested in," hedged John Brinton. "I'm a money-grubber, that 's all. Making money is all I care for, and I make no bones about admitting it."

He acknowledged the arrival of his bacon and eggs by pursing his lips and giving attention to his plate. His square face and puckery gray eyes, the solid quality of the jaw under his bristling gray beard, had moved Brookfield to credit him with a likeness to General Grant. As he ate, he shot an occasional reconnoitering glance at Miss Alice Powell, the future Mrs. Charles Brinton. Mrs. Powell had struck up a conversation with Charles that left Brinton and her daughter stranded.

"Ever been West before?" asked John Brinton of the young lady, categorically.

She lifted a pair of startled brown eyes to him, and a face somewhat rosy with embarrassment. Her eyes slanted downward a little at the outer corners, giving to her expression a plaintive cast that added to her quiet style of good looks.

"Never west of New York," put in Mrs. Powell, relieving the girl of the ne

attracted by the Middle West; and so, when I found that Alice and Charles were preparing to elope,-yes, I assure you, they were on the verge,-I proposed, as an alternative, that we all come here and talk it over with you. I think I'm going to like Brookfield very much. Your Ozark Mountains remind me of the Berkshire Hills, except that the Ozarks seem ever so much more tropical. Your winters, I presume, are mild."

"Yes," said Brinton.

"I must get some one to drive me about the town to-morrow," said Mrs. Powell. "I want specially to see the fine residence district. Out on Cherry Avenue, is n't it? You see, I 've learned a great deal about Brookfield from your son. He made me almost as anxious to see it as to see you."

"You can see it," said Brinton. He was as suspicious as a shot-marked crow, was old John Brinton. The marriageable widows and spinsters of Brookfield had exhausted their wiles on him long ago.

Mrs. Powell raised her eyebrows just the least bit to show that she was displeased, and relinquished him in favor of his son. Throughout the evening, while the four perched on the old, uncomfortable chairs in the musty parlor, she virtually ignored him. Her neglect was pointed by the cheerful manner in which she kept Charles and Alice from having anything to do with him. He was reduced to moping in a corner. He began by looking fateful and important, but ended by looking uncomfortable.

Promptly at his customary hour of ten o'clock he bade them a gruff good night, made his usual round of the house to see that all was safe and tight, and retired to his bedroom. Methodically he removed his collar, coat, waistcoat, and shoes, got a big crooked pipe out of the top drawer of his bureau, and began to smoke. From time to time he was disturbed by sounds of merriment from the front room; a wheezy little pedal-organ, unopened for years, added to the disturbance. He rubbed his gray-socked feet on the worn carpet, scowled at the faded wall-paper, puffed gouts of smoke at the ceiling. He might have been General Grant planning a campaign.

Some one knocked at his door.

[graphic][merged small]

"REMEMBER, I SIMPLY MUST HAVE IT; I GIVE YOU A FREE HAND'"

"Come in!" he called; and his son entered.

By the light of the little kerosene lamp on the bureau, Charles and his shadow seemed to fill one end of the narrow room. He was a large-boned youth, clothed in the tight trousers and wide-shouldered coat fashionable just then. His very wide, very high collar and flaring cravat added to his appearance of top-heaviness.

"Saw your light under the door," he said, and sat down on the bed; since Brinton occupied the rocking-chair, it was the only thing to sit on in the room. "I say,

Dad," he went on, "now that I 'm home for good, don't you think it would be a good idea for us to take a larger house?"

John Brinton gave him one quick, searching glance and puffed his pipe.

"And something a little tonier than this," suggested Charles; "say a goodsized house out on Cherry Avenue, for instance. That 's where all the nobs live, and we've got a right to be about as nobby as any of 'em, have n't we?"

"Did Mrs. Powell put you up to this?" asked Brinton.

Charley smiled a little sheepishly.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »