SCOTTISH HEROINES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2896, 15 September 1909, Page 81

SCOTTISH HEROINES.

By Jessie Mackay.

H-— KtRSTEEN DOUGLAS. Between th« writing ot Miss Ferrier's "Marriage" and Mrs OJiphant's "Kirsteen" there was something over 60 yei'.rs. But there lies infinitely more between the two than the bare turning of Time's wheel. There lies, indeed, a whole cycle of literary development, as well as the inflexible mould of artistic temperament. The first book belongs in construction, at least in a modified manner, to the artificial school of the eighteenth century In tone and outlook, indeed, Miss FerTier is true to her nation ; Mary Douglas, like her sister creations, is conventionalised out Of human drawing, but ehe is utterly free from the mawkish servilities of Pamela and her, school ; and by virtue of 'being reasonably cheerful and strongly vertebrate she may claim to be a prototype of the succeeding Scottish heroine, exemplified at full power by Mis Oliphant's Kirstesn (Anglice, Christina). There was a certain' early life-training •which the two authors in a measure shared. Bat v their laiter circumstances varied greatly. Miss Ferriet in her dignified and easy spinsterhood missed a certain stimulus ; the well of her inspiration flowed late and dried' np early.- Mrs Oliphant, early wedded and early widowed, toiled at her desk much for love, but more for bread To keep her children and herself ehe carried on the career she had embraced at 21, when she published the "Chronicles of Carfin^fond," in, 1849. Against M:sk Ferrier's three -novels- she placed- scores of books — by no means all fiction, for ehe executed' more oy less to order many eminently readable' biographies and books on history. Her fertility was amazing ; more particularly as it is said the whole of her literary werk was done at night, after the ordinary duties of a mother and housekeeper were over. Moreover, she did not stint her house in anything ; economy was a- word she was reported not to understand ; but her faith in herself was justified ; her obligations were always met by her pen at last. A Civil List i>ension of £100 was granted to hei in 1868. It was about the middle of the sixties when "Margaret Maitland" set a permanent seal upon her fame. She worked on -with the same amazing regularity till hei death in 1897 ended a useful and honourable career. Other considerations aside., a. contrast between "Marriage" and "Kirsteen" is another argument for the moss-grown theme in literature. "Marriage" was published eight years before Mrs Oliphant's birth in 1828 ; "Kirsteen" appeared half-wav on in the eighties; but both books dealt with the time of Waterloo. They both also treated of the came pinched provincial Scottish life, in which pride of birth counted to an almost unrealisable extent. Yet "Kirsteen" depicts scenes substantially the same^as those surrounding Mary Douglas with a mellowing touch not wholly due to temperament or altered canons of tat-te. Drumcarro House, the home in which the poor but well-born Kirsteen grows up, is as barn-like as Glenfern, and is blighted, moreover, by a dour father's tyranny. But the sordid picture~is humanised, glorified even, if only by tbe courageous faithfulness of old Margaret Brown, nurse, housekeeper, and guardian angel to the weak, ailing wife of Douglas of Drrimcarro and her many children. Mi's Oliphant excelled in large homely portraiture like this ; whereas such ungilt rusticity of theme was not fit for the pen of gentility 60 years before. The deep-hid poetry of Marg'ret's Kfe was her love for Kirsteen, last but one of Drumcarro's girls, and the only onn who dared to defy him in his ill moods — Kirsteen, -with hei robust, yet trim, figure, her brown eyes. Iver unfashionable red hair, and her wonderful complexion "of a pure whiteness like milk," her tender heart, and her strong will, not to" be broken. 'o. ewayed by man or Fate. And steaightway the "-cader is cast upon Kirsfceen's impregnable rock of romance, the story opening with the departure ol young Bobbie Douglas and his friend, Ronald Drummond, for the Indian service, and tbe sinless theft of Ronald, -who slipped away into his breast pocket the handkerchief marked "R.D." in Kirsteen's red-gold hair. That glorified theft, tbe quick low whisper, "Will ye •wait for mer' and a well-used Testament with "R.D." and "CD " in a rough Runic

scroll on the flyleaf — these were the things Kirsteen's heart fed on all the long years after, as she walked with locked lips and glowing spirit over the rough and thorny ways o? life. Mrs Oliphant knew her ground every inch with those home-keeping women she loved to paint, even as he knew her ground on the northern moore where grow sweet myrtle and yellow "herb of grace," dear to travellers. And the roa* of the linn mingles familiarly, sweetly, y«t doomfully with tile tale of the House of Drun?carro sounding even into the London murk in which brave Kirsteen wrough* out her destiny and that of her family, till even the "dour carle," her father, knew that this neglected and despif cd " lass bairn" had caved the Douglas name the Douglas patrimony, ac not one of her seven brothers 'had luck or wit to do. For Kirsteen is the pivot of the book. All moves round her ; all difficulties vanish, all gates open, before her dauntless will and single heart. 4uid yet she is no paragon of meekness, no angel of Insipid perfection ; she can turn an answer that stings like brine, and shape in a flash a quick little feminine -revenge, o wiping the received offence off bar mind with an even quicker pang of remorse most simple and irost childlike.- The dour family pride of Drum-carro lodges every whit as firmly, if Isss harshly, in his daughter's mind ; to avoid the sin ol broken troth plight she puts herself beyond the pale by soiling her hands with trade. Yet, though accepting this one great sin as her inevitable destiny, sba wiU drag no other of her kin OV2-1 the Rubicon with hei. Even when pretty Jeanie, her youngest sister, beas on bended knee to go to her in London, for fea>r of the insistent love that would draw her to ruin Kirsteen condemns herself to loneliness and secures Jeanie's happiness another way. She still, moreover, holds the salt, as it were, between herself and her yet more hopelessly declassed sifter Anne, who forfeited the Douglas name to ' become, the wife of a vary wr>rthy Glasgow doctor ; and though she visits Anne at last and dares much for her. one measures with Kirsteen every inch of the difficult track of abasement she brings herself to tread for pity's sake.* Very "quaintly told is the idyl of chivalrous old Glendoohart, whose suit, \inknown to himself, drives KiTsteen, a sslf-doomed exile, to London and the haven of Mias Jean Brown's fashionable dre^s-making establishment. Here Kirsteen's taste and spirit bring her fame and ffliriunie in her chosen craft — under the tit 1-s of "Miss Kirsteen," not to shame the Douelas name. Here, after years of not all distasteful labour, falls the blow that st-rik?* dead the iov of Kirsteen's life : Ronald Drummond is killed on an In-dhn ba-ttlefiVld. A triumph of subdued TKission. Saaa-like in its terpe intensity, ifi achieved in the so^ne where Kirsteen half be^s, half demands the h«mdkorchief taken from Ronald's d^ead hand. and marked r-«M>er now than with Kirsteen'a red-wold hair. Th« stern, tearless mother waves her back. Kireteen t>ut out her hands with a gesture of iuTvc!ieatioTi_ "Tt ia mine " sh« said ; "it w*"j for me. It ia all I have to keep my heart. You 9 re his mother. . . It •was me he thought upon — yoßder — he had my handkerchief — and took it from, his breest — and xrut it to hi" mouth." " T^asoie " said Mrs Drummond, " how dare ye tell that like an irtl« tee and put it into oommon words? What are you, a young thingf. that will love n^ain and marry another man. and have bairns at your breast th*t are not his?" Kirsteen sank down on her knees before this te*rle«s mourner. " Will I tell ye what I am?' 1 she said. " I mm young, and we're a long-lived race. ". will maybe live to be a hundred. No bairn wil] ever be at my breast: no man will ever take mv hand. He said to me, ' Will ye wait till I rome back?' And I said to him. "That T will'; «nd h« toMe the littlo napkin from the -fable that had R. t). on it for Robbie (but yet I thought on him all the time) in my red hair. And he "tonoh-etl my arm, and made me look, and he put it to hi« mouth. And h© »«id. 'Will ye wait?' And here we sit forlorn!" said Kirsteen. her voice breaking into a shrill and heart-niereing cry. Th» rifrid mother slowly rose. " Tafce it." she said, " And not another word. But if you are ever unfaithful to him send it back tb> me — or bury it in my gr*ve." "In yours or in mine," was all Kirsteen could say. This is true passion. Bat it is the passion of two Scottish women or two Saga women. Again Kirsteen shows the gold and the iron of her nature when she dares her father's curse to come to her dying

mother. For she carries with her almost r by force the also banished Anne, reduced to a mere bundle of inanity and senseless fear without the strong arm on which , she had leant since her flight. Anne j misses the strange and touching sacra- ' ment of - the mother's blessing, repeated after her in a sort of grim obedience by the half-softened Drumcarro — " 'for the man's the priest — the man's the priest." "J just said ' Amen,' " said the ' dying woman in a curious soft, white triumph. "O Kirsteen, it will just kill me 1" whimpers Anne when o>agged for- , ward at last by her sister and Marg'ret. { "What wil l kill ye?" cries Kireteen in . indignation. "It is just a sight fox the ', angels." The family portraits are all clear as ' cameos. Drumcanx), the tyrant father; Anoe, fair, comely, and gracious when ' at ease, but nerveless and poor in time of stress ; the smooth, cat-like Ma«ry, with. her claws highly sheathed* in velvet, who had art enough to win for herself . and even to make happy the rejected , j Glendoch&rt ; passionate, winsome, golden-haired Jeanie, and gallant and I knightly Major- Gordon, her bridegroom. ! j But Kirsteen towered above them all. | She had conquered in all things, as such . spirits must ever conquer. She went forth by night, banned amd alone-; she ' ! came back to redeem the ancient lands of Douglas, and to shape good out of evil for her loved oanes. She never ' preachedi ; but none came near her with- ' 1 out becoming better. She flatly gave ! the lie, in life, not in words, to the cus- ' torn of the century that concentrated all , on the son's education and placing in ; life, making of the daughter a mindless • drudge at home. ( But the lovely, majestic, sunny Miss i Douglas of later days, queening it with the noblest in Edinburgh society, the ; l«nefact«r of the poor, the helper of all : good causes, was never forgiven wholly by some. Her brothens in particular felt her life to have been a regrettable ■ failure. "She had heen a London mantua- ! maker, a.-nd she had never gotten a man f " [ they said. i None of them knew their pity was wasted on a woman who carried unsearred a life's romance, a life's ideal, in. the locked silver oasket at her bedhead.