The Silver Glen

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, 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.

“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 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, 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.