Nancy Stair: A Novel

The great duke lay in state in St. Giles, and the Highlands emptied themselves into Edinburgh demanding justice. The lady-mother of the dead was there, broken-hearted, and Perci...

On toward midnight I was awakened by Dickenson clamoring at my door, telling me that Nancy lay delirious, with a high fever, calling for me. Making what haste I could, I reached...

It was from the time of the garden party on that Danvers Carmichael and his Grace of Borthwicke were, to speak rudely, walking into each other at every turn of Stair, and it is...

We came back to Scotland in July, 1786, and one day, late in the month, Nancy came in to tell me that she intended having a birthday party that same evening.

There were two reasons why Danvers was able to see Nancy almost uninterruptedly the next two or three weeks, the first being that we were but late returned from London, with old...

We were back at Stair for nearly a fortnight, with Nancy quite herself again, before she took me into her confidence regarding the Burns experience. Leaning against the wall by...

The day following this event I was called into the Mearns to look after some property which by reason of an entail had been thrust into my hands. Nancy had planned to accompany...

As I have written, save for Huey MacGrath, we should have been away from Scotland at the time of the Allisons' ball, and by this absence should have missed the visit of the Duke...

Up to this point there are many events which I have drawn with blurred edges by reason of the distance of time; but from this to the end of my story I have the pettiest details...

At the time of which I write John Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Ardvilarchan, and Drumblaine, was the most noticed man in the Three Kingdoms, and held by many to be the greatest...

Whether the conduct of the Duke of Borthwicke brought a climax to the affairs between Danvers and Nancy I can not state for a surety, but the next morning as I sat alone on the...

In spite of Hugh Pitcairn we were off the following Monday, going out of Leith, with a clear sky, a stiff breeze, and six men of our own feather, caring little where our destina...

By reason of a breakneck ride through the Pentlands, I entered the dining-room at Stair very late one morning to find Huey MacGrath in a state of deepest gloom waiting to serve...

There has been some delay in bringing Hugh Pitcairn into my story, and, as I read that which I have written, I seem to have set him down in a scant and dry manner little calcula...

I had been from Scotland near five years, when two letters were handed to me as I sat in The British Sailors' Tavern, in Calcutta; one of which was from Hugh Pitcairn and the ot...

Upon the day following that on which I denied Danvers the house, a letter came to us from a hamlet on the west coast, near Allan-lough, saying that Janet McGillavorich was sick...

Father Michel, Sandy, and Hugh Pitcairn were the only ones who knew enough of the child to make their advices on the subject of an education for her of any value, and it was the...

There was no sleep for me that night, and I lay awake till the clear day, watching the gulls fly across the window and waiting the time when I might see her once again. Early as...

"For you--though I'm far from sure that you deserve it, for if there's a man in Edinburgh this morning whom ye haven't in love with ye, he's blind. However," he laughed, "we'll...

On the day that Magendie took the case I had a taste of another kind of lawing than Pitcairn's, for the London man, to speak in a common phrase, oiled everybody. He poured oil o...

Of all this rhyming gaiety, it will be remembered, I had no knowledge at the time, being still at Alton, chafing under the business in hand, and awaiting each post, as the days...

A fortnight passed with no news of the Arran folks whatever, when one morning Sandy appeared at the door of the small dining-room where we were breakfasting, his sudden appearan...

While these events were going forward at Allan-lough I sat in an ignorant complacency at Stair, pleased with the advices of Janet's convalescence, and with no knowledge whatever...

Several days after this strange home-coming some business called me to the far woods, where I was detained until the afternoon sun was well on its way behind the hills. Nearing...

I rode back to Stair, having accomplished nothing whatever with the duke, sick at heart and baffled completely by the shameless honesty of the man. Whiles I made up my mind to r...

On my return to Stair I found Nancy on the south steps with a letter in her hand. In her white frock, with her hair bobbing in a bunch of curls on the top of her head, she looke...

"With knowledge so vast and with judgment so strong No man with the half of them e'er could go wrong; With passion so potent, and fancies so bright, No man with the half of them...