THE SILVER GLEN

A Story of the Rebellion of 1715

AS TOLD BY BARBARA, LADY FLEMING, IN THE YEAR 1755; AT THE REQUEST OF HER KINSMAN, SIR HENRY ERSKINE.

BY

BESSIE DILL

AUTHOR OF

“MY LADY NAN,” “THE FINAL GOAL,” ETC., ETC.

LONDON

DIGBY, LONG & CO.

18 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.

1909

[ii]

To

MRS. ERSKINE-MURRAY AND HER FAMILY

This Book is affectionately

Dedicated

B. D.

[iii]

PREFACE

The Letters of Lady Erskine of Alva which appear in this tale are at once its chief interest and the origin of its being; for my desire in writing “The Silver Glen” is to make known to a wider circle the vivid story of which they are the outcome. My conviction that they would prove as attractive to others as to myself induced the late Mr. Erskine-Murray, among whose family-papers they are preserved, to give me his kind permission to use them.

To weave a romance around the names of persons who have really lived, and whose descendants are still in existence, is a liberty which calls for an apology on the part of the author. With the exception of Barbara Stewart, Anthony Fleming and the younger David Pitcairn none of the principal characters in the following story are wholly fictitious; but I trust, that as I have kept very closely to facts, no serious cause of offence can be found. Most of the incidents described are matters of history, and the narrative is purposely told in a plain and simple manner, as much as possible in keeping with the tone of the Letters.

Among the books from which I have obtained information, and in some cases, borrowed freely, I may mention Professor Terry’s useful and interesting volume, The Chevalier de St. George and the Jacobite Movements; The Memoirs of the Master of Sinclair; Rae’s History of the Rebellion (1718); Scotland and Scotsmen of the 18th Century, by Ramsay of Ochtertyre; and the Calendar of the Stuart Papers belonging to His Majesty at Windsor Castle (Vol. II. and III.) In the Eighth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission also, there are numerous details on the subject of Sir John Erskine’s Silver Mines.

In view of the new light recently thrown upon the Character of James (The Old Pretender), a fact very clearly brought out by Mr. Andrew Lang in his History of Scotland (Vol IV.) it is particularly interesting to note the remark of Lady Erskine in Letter XVI.: “There is one advantage,” she writes to her husband, “of being with Kid (i.e., James), that you will live mighty regular and get no ill examples.”

My warmest thanks are due, in the first place, to the late Mr. Erskine-Murray for his kind permission to use these Letters; I should also like to record my gratitude to Miss Johnstone of Alva, to the Rev. Robert Paul, F.R.S.A., Dollar, N.B., and to the Rev. A. Thomson Grant, Chaplain at Wemyss Castle, who have all in different ways assisted me, as well as to the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh for their courtesy in allowing me to read in their Library. Except for the punctuation, and the omission of a sentence occasionally where the meaning is obscure, Lady Erskine’s Letters are reproduced as they were written.

B. D.

[vi]

NOVELS BY BESSIE DILL

My Lady Nan

“A daintily written eighteenth century romance. The story is thoroughly entertaining.”—Daily Express.

“A charming tale.”—The Times.

“A very pretty tale, written with a light and powerful touch.”—The Guardian.

“Written with a dainty efficiency which is very attractive. A charming tale.”—Liverpool Courier.

The Final Goal

“As fascinating a romance as one could lay hands on, and will enhance the reputation of the writer. There is a genuine literary ring about the whole book. It is a book to read and enjoy.”—The Scotsman.

“An altogether delightful story.”—Liverpool Daily Courier.

The Lords of Life

“An excellent and well written book. ‘Van,’ the charming Scottish heroine, with that unfortunate possession, ‘a temperament,’ who leaves her northern home at the Manse, for Anglo-Indian life, is more than usually interesting.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

“The story of a governess’s life, artistically told, and with a fidelity to nature which makes it appear as if a slab out of the living world had been set before us, we were watching the actions and reading the thoughts of the people of it. The story is told with a tragic passion which reminds one of Jane Eyre.”—Sheffield Daily Telegraph.

“A grand story, the charm of the book is in the development of character, the refining of the gold of a girl’s joyful innocence in the fire of experience.”—Leeds Mercury.

The Story of Bell

“The story is simply and touchingly told, and retains the reader’s sympathy and interest to the end.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

“The story is a masterpiece ... a story with a great and noble purpose, which we cannot read without feeling all the better.”—Christian Journal.

[7]

THE SILVER GLEN

INTRODUCTION

A few days ago, as I sat in my pleasant parlour looking out on one of the fairest prospects in this our fair land of England, my cousin, Sir Henry Erskine, who hath been spending some days at our house, entered the room with his quick soldier-like step, and came to a halt, as he would say, at my side.

“See here, cousin!” he cried, holding out to me a packet of papers, “there is something here that will interest you. These letters were given me by my Uncle Charles, my Lord Tinwald, t’other day when I was visiting at Alva House, and I have but just looked into them. They were written, I find, by my mother of blessed memory to Sir John, while he was abroad in exile for his misdeeds, as one may say now, in the year 1716.”

I caught at the papers with a cry, half of delight and half of tender sorrow, for if Henry’s voice had softened as he mentioned his mother’s name, ’twas no more than her due, who was ever the wisest and most loving of parents; and if to him, the thought of her represented all that is sweetest and best in womanhood—as one may suppose, seeing he hath not yet crowned perfection by taking unto himself a wife—to me it did no less, being as I was the object of her most tender care and kindness at a time in my life when I sorely needed both.

The sight of those thin broad sheets, covered with the fine clear writing which had once been so familiar to me, [8] brought the tears to my eyes. Sure they were well worn, those ancient letters, having been borne in Sir John’s wallet, no doubt, for many a weary month, and since lain by in some desk or chest at Alva House for safety; and at the sight of the seal on the back, so carefully broken that the wax still retained on many of the sheets its perfect imprint, a vision of my dear lady folding and sealing with trembling haste one of these same precious letters, came so clear to my mind, that almost I thought I heard her voice calling to me as in the days of old.

“See, Henry,” I said softly, pointing to the seal, “how well I remember the ring she ever used. Too large for her slender hand, she wore it on a long gold chain around her neck. Your father, Sir John, had used it when writing to her before they were wed, and, sweet woman that she was, she would never have any other for the letters that passed between them. ‘For, Barbara,’ said she to me once, and I can still see her smile, ‘the legend is so true, that ’twould be folly to take to another.’”

Together we bent over the faded wax, and Henry laid his lips upon it gently. There has ever been a spirit of poetry and chivalry in this stalwart soldier, whom as a little child I had so often held upon my knee.

“A heart embossed, and round it the words, ‘Vous y regnez seul.’ True, indeed!” said he with a smile; “Sir John reigned there alone, and even her children were in her heart but little subjects to their rightful king.”

“Sure, my dear, you lost nothing by that,” I cried, “for happier children, or a kindlier home I never did see. The love that filled my lady’s heart was a bounteous fire that brightened and warmed all who approached her. Sweet soul! I thank God still for having known and loved her.”

Saying this I turned my eyes again upon the letters in my hands, and so potent was the spell of the first few words I read, that my mind leapt back across a gulf of forty years, and left my body sitting blind and deaf in the chair in my sunny English parlour.

A sudden laugh from Sir Henry brought my wits home again.

[9]

“Cousin Barbara,” he cried, “I have been speaking to you for some minutes and not one word have you heard of my discourse. Nay, dear cousin, do not apologise. The love you bore my mother hath ever been a tie between her children and yourself, and I know well that your tender heart is filled with regretful memories at sight of these letters writ by her hand.”

“She was indeed the dearest woman-friend I ever had,” said I. “Alas! too early lost.”

“And for that very reason,” said he, “I made my bold request, which, as you did not hear it, I must needs repeat. Will you not, for the love you bore those that are passed away, and a little for the love of us who remain, write out for our instruction and profit, your recollections of that troublous time, with something also of your own romance, and the strange story of the Silver Glen which I have so often heard from you as a boy?”

My gaze went past him out of the window, across miles of green pasture and softly waving foliage to the silver shining of the Severn beyond. Far, far away the hills of Wales rose into the sky, the day being clear and bright. Close to the house the flowers were blooming very sweet and fragrant, for the month was June, and in the shrubbery behind the garden, the blackbirds and thrushes sang their best.

“Of course, if you should think it too great a labour—” Sir Henry broke in upon my musings, but I held up my hand to stop him.

“Nay, cousin,” I cried, “’twould be what is called ‘a labour of love’ surely. I was but thinking how little fit I am to be the chronicler of those exciting times. I will not be so mock-modest as to pretend to consider myself unfit in the matter of appreciating your dear mother’s character and conduct, for few had the opportunities to know and esteem her that I had. But I am truly no historian, and the tale will be written from my own point of view, which needs must be a narrow one. I have, I believe, upstairs hidden away in the corner of some ancient chest, a diary of that same year writ in a girlish hand. By help of this, and by reading, since you permit it, these sacred letters, I [10] promise you I will do my best endeavour to give you a true and full account of the events that took place in your home, and among your family, when you were an innocent small boy of four or five years old. But consider a little how long a time has passed. My youth with all its fears and follies, its joys and sorrows, is far away. I have

wandered back and forth upon the earth, knowing many changes and living in distant lands, for a wife, as you know, must ever be ready to follow her husband; and if now in the evening of my life I can sit placidly at this sunny window looking out upon the Severn Sea, and know that my dear and kind spouse is no further away than in the next room, or in the garden, or at the home-farm, I thank God very humbly in my heart, Who has brought me to this peaceful place by a way that I knew not, and little expected to find. Dear Henry, I am but a garrulous old woman, and what I want to say is, that if my memory of those distant days is grown a little dim, and certain things are gone from my mind never to return, I must pray you to forgive me, and put it down, not to foolishness, but to old age.”

Whereupon Sir Henry rallied me upon my fears, and laughed at me for calling myself old, who am scarce more than a dozen years his senior, and kissing my hand in the gallant way he has, he left me sitting by the window with these old letters in my lap.

And suddenly, after a long silence, a single mavis burst into song, and trilled and throbbed so exquisite a melody that I held my breath to listen. For there were many years of my life in which I did not hear that lovely music, and now a mavis never sings in the long sweet twilight but my thoughts fly out to my lost dear, Catherine, Lady Erskine (for a reason that I hope to tell you by-and-bye), and it seemed strange that when my mind was so full of her, the bird that I always think of as hers should start to make music beside me. But I have often noticed in my changeful life, the little happenings that link our minds with the past and the future, with facts on earth and aspirations in Heaven, with human hopes and divine longings, so that the scent of a flower, or a child’s laugh, [11] or a glorious sunset, or a sudden happiness, may lift our hearts, before we know it, right into the presence of God.

All letters it seems to me must in a greater or less degree be the exponents of the writer’s mind. Of some, indeed, we might say that they mirror very clearly the character and disposition of their authors, and more especially when exchanged between two close and loving friends without fear of outside criticism, or any thought of possible publicity. Most truly is this the case in the letters before me. So intimate and natural they are that I almost shrink from exposing them to the eyes of strangers, however kind and sympathetic these may be; and yet they can but excite the warmest affection and admiration in all minds, being the outpourings of a loyal, loving and courageous heart. They were written in haste oftentimes, in doubt and fear and terrible anxiety, but not once does the brave spirit falter nor the love in them grow cold or dim.

Now it is true that, as I said to Sir Henry, my view of those far-off events of my girlhood, besides having grown somewhat dim, must be but a narrow one, for I lived as it were in the midst of the story, and could not know at the time many facts and results that were afterwards made plain to all. To such as may care to read my simple narrative, which, if plain and unstudied, is yet true and I think not wanting in interest, I must say at once that my sole reason in undertaking the task is my desire to make more widely known among her descendants, namely, my dear God-daughter, Barbara; her niece, Christian, poor Charles’s little girl, and Sir Henry, who will I hope marry and have a family of his own, as well as to my own dear daughter and her children—the character of the sweet and noble woman who was the friend of my youth.

I therefore make no apology for leaving to the writers of history many details of that unhappy time; only so far as it touched upon the lives and happiness of those I loved does it concern me. And so, with no more than a humble regret that my skill is not more worthy of my theme, I take up my pen to begin this story of the so-called Rebellion in the year seventeen hundred and fifteen.

[12]

CHAPTER I

SHOWS HOW BARBARA STEWART LEFT SCHOOL

’Twas in the early hours of a dark December morning in the year 1714 that I was awakened suddenly by the cautious opening of the chamber door, and saw with blinking eyes the bare room where I slept with three of my school companions. The wavering flicker of a candle carried by a cautious hand showed me the night-capped heads upon their pillows, the bare walls, the uncarpeted floor, the staring, black, uncurtained window, and, the sight arousing no interest in my mind, I closed my eyes against the intruding light. Little Miss Gordon, the youngest girl in the school, who slept in the bed with me, raised a protesting arm across her face, and called out in accents sleepy and petulant, “Oh, Betsy, take that horrid light away. ’Tis not morning yet, I am but just fallen asleep!”

Now it has always been my custom to awake up instantly with all my senses on the alert. I say it not to boast, though the faculty hath served me well once or twice in my life, for some are born so, just as others are drowsy-heads from the cradle to the grave; but this being my habit, I had seen with the first opening of my eyes that it was not Betsy, the maid, who had entered our room, but no less a personage than Mistress Marget Lindsay, the younger of the two sisters who kept a boarding-school for young ladies in Paterson’s Court, off the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh. Now, Mistress Marget, besides being the younger of our school-mistresses, was the one least feared by their pupils; I had almost said the best loved, but in those days (I know not if it be so still), anything so gentle as love scarce entered into the training of young ladies at school. That she had a kind heart, however, I have [13] been sure ever since that dark, winter morn, as, shading the candle with her hand, she came quickly to my bed-side and bent down to discover if I were still asleep.

“Miss Stewart, my dear—Barbara. Are you awake?” she cried softly.

I sat up in bed and untied my cap-strings, the better to hear what she had to say.

“I am awake, madam; what is it you want of me? Sure, ’tis not time yet for me to be at my exercises!” said I, a little alarmed at the gravity of her face.

She shook her head and sat down beside me on the bed.

“No, no, child; do not be alarmed! And yet I fear I have news that will disquiet you. A man-servant has come from Rosyth to take you home. You must rise at once and attire yourself for the journey.”

“A man-servant?” I repeated, obediently putting one foot out of bed. “Old Robert, belike. Oh, Mistress Marget!” I cried, stopping suddenly, “pray tell me at once what is wrong.”

With the truest kindness the good woman did not attempt to turn my thoughts aside from their fear. She answered immediately and without circumlocution.

“Your grandfather, Miss Stewart, has met with an accident, and ’tis feared he cannot live. He would see you, dear bairn, before he dies.”

There may be some who think this stern announcement to a young maid of sixteen somewhat wanting in tenderness and compassion. They may consider that to hint at a possible calamity, mentioning a severe illness or the like, but holding out hopes of a speedy recovery, would have been the kinder way. If so, I cannot agree with them. The progress of “preparing the mind” of any poor creature to receive a blow hath always seemed to me both cruel and useless. In many cases, the more sudden the shock, the more strongly is the mind braced to bear it for the moment; and so it was in my own case. I leapt from my bed and began hurriedly to put on my clothes.

“My grandpapa dying, and asking for me? Oh, Mistress Marget, I must hasten; I pray you, assist me with this [14] lace. Will you not kindly tie these strings? Hath Robert brought the carriage? Ah no! the snow is too deep. I am to ride pillion? Yes, I must wear my thickest shawl and hood. Oh, do not hinder me, dear madam, I must be going now; I cannot keep Robert waiting another moment.”

“My dear Miss Stewart,” said my mistress, quietly detaining me while she tied a thick veil over my face, and searched for scarf and mits, “Robert is in the kitchen being warmed and fed. The good creature was almost lifeless from the cold. And do you think, my dear girl, that my sister would suffer you to leave her house at this hour fasting? There is no speed in such senseless haste as you know, and while I admire your courage and fortitude, and the eagerness you exhibit to do your grandfather’s behest, I must counsel you, my dear, to remember that patience is one of the highest virtues a woman can possess, and self-control is another.”