



Produced by Steve Schulze and the Online Distributed
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_Nancy Stair_


_A NOVEL_



_By ELINOR MACARTNEY LANE_

_Author of "Mills of God"_



_A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers
NEW YORK_


COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

_Published May, 1904_



_To_ Frank Brett Noyes
_Who accepted, with a kind letter,
The first story I ever wrote,
This tale of_ Nancy Stair _is dedicated,
As a tribute of affection,
From one old friend to another._



    "For woman is not undeveloped man,
    But diverse; could we make her as the man,
    Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
    Not like to like, but like in difference."

                         TENNYSON.

    "Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears,
      Her noblest work she classes, O,
    Her 'prentice hand she tried on man,
      And then she made the lasses, O."

                         ROBERT BURNS.


"Ye can't educate women as you can men. They're
elemental creatures; and ye can no more change their
natures than ye can stop fire from burning."

                         HUGH PITCAIRN.




PREFACE BY LORD STAIR


Two excellent accounts of the beautiful Nancy Stair have already been
published; the first by Mrs. George Opie, in the Scots News, giving a
detailed account of the work on the burnside, and a more recent one by
Professor Erskine, of our own University, which is little more than a
critical dissertation upon Nancy as a poet; the heart of the matter
with him being to commend her English verses, as well as those in "gude
braid Scot."

With these accounts to be secured so easily it may seem presumptuous,
as well as superfluous, for me to undertake a third. I state at the
outset, therefore, that it is beyond my ambition and my abilities to
add a word to stories told so well. Nor do I purpose to mention either
the work on the burn or Nancy's song-making, save when necessary for
clearness.

For me, however, the life of Nancy Stair has a far deeper significance
than that set forth by either of these gifted authors. My knowledge of
her was naturally of the most intimate; I watched her grow from a
wonderful child into a wonderful woman; and saw her, with a man's
education, none but men for friends, and no counselings save from her
own heart, solve most wisely for the race the problem put to every
woman of gift; and with sweetest reasoning and no bitter renouncings
enter the kingdom of great womanhood.

To tell this intimate side of her life with what skill I have is the
chief purpose of my writing, but there are two other motives almost as
strong. The first of these is to clear away the mystery of the murder
which for so long clouded our lives at Stair. To do this there is no
man in Scotland to-day so able as myself. It was I who bid the Duke to
Stair; the quarrel which brought on the meeting fell directly beneath
my eyes; I heard the shots and found the dead upon that fearful night,
and afterward went blindfolded through the bitter business of the
trial. I was the first, as well, to scent the truth at the bottom of
the defense, and have in my possession, as I write, the confession
which removed all doubt as to the manner in which the deed was
committed.

The second reason is to set clear Nancy's relation to Robert Burns, of
which too much has been made, and whose influence upon her and her
writings has been grossly exaggerated. Her observation of natural
genius in him changed her greatly, and I have tried to set this forth
with clearness; but it affected her in a very different manner from
that which her two famous biographers have told, and I have it from her
own lips that it was because of the Burns episode that she stopped
writing altogether.

If