The open-mouthed wonder of Nanny reached its height when one night, after long and urgent solicitation, she was persuaded to go under good protection to the Theatre Royal. Mackay was then in the zenith of his fame, and attracted crowded houses, more especially by his unique representation of Bailie Nicol Jarvie. Nanny was taken to the pit. The blaze of light, the galleries rising one above another, the gaily-dressed ladies, the sea of faces surging from floor to roof, the whistling, hooting, and laughing—all these mingled together produced a bewildering effect upon the poor woman, and her bewilderment increased as the curtain rose and the play proceeded. She was speechless for about an hour—she did nothing but gape and gaze. A human being suddenly transported into some brilliant and magical hall, or into another world, could scarcely have betrayed more abject astonishment. At last her wonder found vent, and she exclaimed in the hearing, and much to the amusement, of those who surrounded her—“Tak me awa—tak me awa—this is no a place for me—I’m just Peter Pearson’s ain wife!” She would not be persuaded to remain even when the Bailie kept the house dissolved in loosened laughter. The idea seemed to be strong in her mind that the people were all laughing at her. She was the best actress, although the most unconscious one, in the whole house. What a capital pair the Bailie and Nanny would have made! She would have beat Miss Nicol. Her first appearance on the stage would have been a perfect triumph—it would have secured the fame and fortune of Mrs Pearson. Nanny never liked to be asked her opinion of the Edinburgh theatre. She only shook her head, and appeared to regard it as something akin to Pandemonium.
Nanny’s stories about the sayings and doings of the Edinburgh people served her for fireside talk many a winter evening after she returned home to Peter Pearson. Peter, who had seen more of the world, used to take a quiet chuckle to himself when she finished her description of some “ferlie” that had excited her astonishment or admiration. The gilded wonders above shop doors—the Highlanders taking pinches of snuff—the wool-packs—the great glittering spectacles—the rams’ heads and horns—these had excited her rustic curiosity almost as much as they attract the interest of a child. Poor honest Nanny! she has now slept for years where the “rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,” and Peter, after life’s fitful fever, sleeps well by her side.—Pax Vobiscum!
LADY JEAN:
A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Chapter I.
The Yerl o’ Wigton had three dauchters,
O braw walie! they were bonnie!
The youngest o’ them and the bonniest too,
Has fallen in love wi’ Richie Storie.
Old Ballad.
The Earl of Wigton, whose name figures in Scottish annals of the reign of Charles II., had three daughters, named Lady Frances, Lady Grizel, and Lady Jean,—the last being by several years the youngest, and by many degrees the most beautiful. All the three usually resided with their mother at the chief seat of the family, Cumbernauld House, in Stirlingshire; but the two eldest were occasionally permitted to attend their father in Edinburgh, in order that they might have some chance of obtaining lovers at the court held there by the Duke of Lauderdale, while Lady Jean was kept constantly at home, and debarred from the society of the capital, lest her superior beauty might interfere with and foil the attractions of her sisters, who, according to the notion of that age, had a sort of “right of primogeniture” in matrimony, as well as in what was called “heirship.”