Works of Annie Fields

Diary Contents

 

Diary of a West Indian Island Tour
by
Annie Fields
1896

Part 11:  Other Documents

[ Two other documents appear on the microfilm with the Fields diary.]

[Page 21,  fragment from a work of fiction?]

-- to the shore together and watched the tumbling sea.  The [unrecognized word] house is a [unrecognized word] -- Small means but perfect taste and the effect is most lovely. 

            But first and last over and above all here is the weight and shadowy death which hangs upon Charlotte -- She has a cancer we fear eating at her heart ---- Twice it has been destroyed but the [two unrecognized words] serpent seems to be gnawing at her heart -- [Such ?] pathos as there is in it --  [Such ?] power and sweetness and courage!  Poor soul!  The valley looks very [unrecognized word] dark to her but she struggles on and on, making the days sunshiny for others which are often frightfully dark to herself.

            Who can tell us what the end shall be!

 

---

[ Page 22, 1907 Diary Entry ]

Monday, March 11th 1907. Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren)*  came to luncheon at one o'clock.  We were six at table. S.O.J.{,} Agnes Irwin{,} Edith Wolcott{,} Dr & Mrs W *and myself.  He interested us deeply as he must interest everyone who really well knows and discerns him.  Toward the end he told us that he was a born Jacobite.*  Among his friends are the persons who have been living in Glamis Castle and one or two other old places he called by name but I could not catch.  He told us especially of an old woman, the wife of an older Colonel in the army of the Scots, Carnegy by name.  Not Carnegie,* and so far as they know not quite the same family.  This Carnegy is a perfect repository of the most amazing tales of old Scotland.  She smokes, no small things or cigarettes, but long strong cigars and many of these tales have been told in the small [ hours ?], in the smoking room of one of these old places.  He told much worthy of remembrance; only one little tale stays by me of the covenanter soldier* who had been slain protecting his own estates.  His wife fled southward to shelter, but at the moment the friends who bore her away

[ Page 23 ]

2

said she must leave her little son and his nurse behind until a place of safety could be found for them. Shortly after the castle had been left desolate.  There was a cry that more soldiers were coming to discover if there were men concealed in the house.  The old nurse seized the child, ran to the old chapel where the body ^of his father^ was lying covered with a pall before the altar.  She hoped to hide the child somewhere, but there was no spot for concealment in this bare stone place!  Suddenly she said to the child{,} I will put you in your father's arms and cover you with the cloth. Your father loved ye and was good to ye while he [deleted word] ^was alive and he will no harm [you changed to ye ?] now he is dead!  So she rested the boy's head in the hollow of his father's arm upon his chest and told him{,} Lie still now, do not cry nor cough and they will never find you.

[ Page 24 ]

[3 partly circled]

So she covered him with the pall and went away.

    Presently the soldiers came again.  They looked into the cold stone chapel where lay the still cold body under a pall -- shut the door quietly and went away.  By and by when the men had ridden away the nurse went to her little boy and kissed his happy little face as she bore him away from the ^his^ cold dark hiding place.

Notes

Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren):  Wikipedia says:  "Rev. John Watson (3 November 1850 - 6 May 1907), known by his pen name Ian Maclaren, was a Scottish author and theologian.... Maclaren's first stories of rural Scottish life, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (1894), achieved extraordinary popularity, selling more than 700 thousand copies, and were succeeded by other successful books, The Days of Auld Lang Syne (1895), Kate Carnegie and those Ministers (1896), and Afterwards and other Stories (1898)."

S.O.J.:  Sarah Orne Jewett.

Agnes Irwin:  "Agnes Irwin (December 30, 1841 - December 5, 1914) was an American educator, best known as the first dean of Radcliffe College from 1894 to 1909 and as the principal from 1869 to 1894 of the West Penn Square Seminary for Young Ladies in Philadelphia, later renamed, in her honor, the Agnes Irwin School."  Wikipedia.

Edith Wolcott:  Edith Prescott Wolcott (1853-1934) was the great-granddaughter of Colonel William Prescott, a hero of the American Revolution, and she married Roger Wolcott (1847-1900), a lawyer and Republican politician who served in several elective offices, including Governor of Massachusetts (1896-1900).

Dr & Mrs W:   Determining which persons Fields refers to here is difficult. Among the more serious candidates would be local historian and author, Reverend Thomas Franklin Waters and his wife Adeline Melville Orswell.   See Correspondents.   Lacking a Doctor of Divinity degree, however, Rev. Waters may well not be the right person.  Assistance is welcome.

Jacobite:  Wikipedia says: "Jacobitism ... was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James VII of Scotland, II of England and Ireland, and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, the original Latin form of James. Adherents rebelled against the British government on several occasions between 1688 and 1746.

Glamis Castle:  Wikipedia says: "Glamis Castle is situated beside the village of Glamis ... in Angus, Scotland.... In 1034 King Malcolm II was murdered at Glamis, where there was a Royal Hunting Lodge."  In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth (1603-06), the eponymous character resides at Glamis Castle, although the historical King Macbeth (d. 1057) had no connection to the castle."

Not Carnegie:  Watson and Fields are distinguishing the Carnegy family from the family of Andrew Carnegie (1835 - 1919), "a Scottish American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He is often identified as one of the richest people in history, alongside John D. Rockefeller and Jakob Fugger. He built a leadership role as a philanthropist for the United States and the British Empire." Wikipedia.

covenanter soldier:  Covenanters were Scots Presbyterians who took control of the government of Scotland in the early 17th century.  Thereafter, they frequently found themselves at war, for example with Oliver Cromwell's army of Parliament at mid-century and with King James II of England in the 1660s and after.  Watson's story apparently is not specific about the conflict to which his story belongs.