The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-07-01
'--IS''- -Trvl h .'-I1
NEW H6OKs'
>r,,, Mar.arers Own story.

a paret. Called The Fair Maid Of Galloway"
n Dodd, Mead Coz, purports to have been
"A written by Margaret herself in old age.
y, Il am an old woman" she says in account
Ing for herself at tho period when she had
turned historian. Not many old women,
4 We dare saw, could have conduct through
10 many pages a pen 80 animated and so
Il playful. Repeatedly We have found our
81 selves thinking; This Ia really Mr.. Crockett
y who Is cracking Jokes and dancing Haily
y ,out, and not the venerable Margaret at
u Margaret in Mr.. Crocketts first chapter
"a ords for us her Impotence OF the restraint
~ Iposed upon her in Il French convent
n hen she was only IS years old. Loro
i Lord! how hated il. she writes. l. Mar
n garet Dou gas, who had been the petted
III ~ great men and strong men ever since
n could remember" In that observation we
n have a considerable explanation Of Mar
i earet. She was lovely. and she knew 1t.
Ri What wrong for loveliness to be obliged
M to suffer the discipline of a nunnery! We
X will quote single specification Of the cruel
III ties that abe was monstrously called upon
i to endure:
II AT o'clock in the morning black roar
n Ing winter or gracious June, out you must
4 aye, though you be thrice Princess in
\ your own right. And they would not let
4 you have 40 much as a drop Of warm water
in a pottery jar for the foot Of your bed
(mightily comforting it il to lone women)
nor even suff er you to sleep in your WOODEN
Il oonelle which ia to say gown that hath a
Z hood to it, and. being turned head and heels,
makes an admira bic nest for cold great toes
a nights. have suffered from cold feet
! all my days. Indeed, if had not perhaps,
had been a happier woman
a Would Margaret really have ma de this con-
ii ression? Is il not obviously Mr.. Crockett
4 \ ma king it for her? Is it not unmis-
! takably male person who takes it upon
a himself to rehearse that old fiction Of the
cold feet of lone ladies'? 1t has seemed
4 to ,is as though we had discovered here
= rude stroke from masculine hand.
4 The story has it that Margaret called
Al the lady superior Of the convent a bald
cat and that she surrepttiously kissed
Larry McKim. a holy abbot still in his
II youth who had curly hair and came to tho
nunnery richly attired. riding snow white
mule. Our heroine married the Abbot
!. Larry strange as that may seem, and be-
L fore she married him she married Lord
l William Douglas and Lord James Douglas.
\ one after the other though these two pre-
iminary marriages, we hasten to say,
" were merely nominal and did not count
kH She had a certain pride at ls in the pros
act of matrimony, though she spoke of
~ same without reverence in her old age
I'll When she was composing this chronicle,
Ia certain boastfulness, permissible in a
Tried and triumphant female, is observable
at this point, as we'll as at most others.
d We read at page 30:
MY chief Joy and safety in thus COM
"A pleting my education was that every one
III knew that l was 40 soon to Ice married
by high pontifical dispensation, Papal bull,
g holy cord, and four pounds of wax thereto
attachsd-not to speak, as it were, of bell,
y hook and candle. So they might sigh
= the men Of them, that is-but no one could
i think mo, not for moment) that ! meant
: any harm. Indeed, I never did, and said
so frequently when the harm came
~ Four pages further on the aged heroine
& writes, after recording something saucy
: that she said to the Abbot: Larry said
nothing in words, but his fingers itched
visibly to box my ears-or, for aught
D. know, more and worse" 1t sounds. we
II say again, like Mr.. Crockett, and not like the
aged Margaret Surely she wo uld not
approach recklessness NO nearly. We sup
II pose that to itch vsibly is to afford the
sctive physical signs consequent upon
3 oddly irritation and calculated to a,ay it..
! II any rate, we're We ourselves to say OF
\ nybody that he itched vsiby. we should
lxpect the reader to understand that he
v kcratched himself.
I'll 1t ia impossible, much as We have the
=, inclinaton, to tell all about Margaret
Awe will speak further only of the great
x cannon fired off by Malise Mckim. The
reader will find an account Of this in the
chapter entitled -Malise Does His Work. y
1.-THE title is quite accurate regarding Malise
That mad blacksmith wrought great havoc
with his cannon. The King and the Others
Nstood around. on went the cannon,
M.doctored" monster. There were BLACK
wedges" that had been immersed in oil
"a Margaret beheld them and OWNED. For
nee she was not tiippant and playful
4 Stop" she cried. Il beseech you all to go
z tway. There is danger here-perhaps
Zdeath" The King was merely angered
lat this interruption and warning. He called
Margaret girl" He bruskly ordered
ther away.
on went the cannon as we have said
margaret saved herself and the one time
SAbbot Larry She records: BY this time
u had my hand on the collar of Laurence's
Wblouse, Of the strong rough stuff which
4 he wore at his enginery, Suddenly leaning
4 !all my weight upon it, ! brought us both
ITO the ground at the very moment when
saw Malse set his blazing match to the
ltouchhoe The roar of the lombard was
followed by cry more great and terrible
lstill. For a moment it seemed as if all
lwho moment before had stood about were
y3lying in their blood. The great cannon
N HAD burst at the first trial. The wedges
had slipped like glass. Morton had fallen
: lon his face with his arms outspread. Angus,
n lpale az parchment, lay wounded to the
7 Ndeath, The King. when they went to lift
J tnim up, was dead And as to Malise the
,mith, after that great explosion, in plain
/ Sords-he was not"
I 1t Is not he. but the story OF him, that
" matters OF him and the others. Margaret
wrote readily with much playfulness and