The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 16

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Robert Louis Stevenson. The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 16

RECORDS OF A FAMILY OF ENGINEERS

INTRODUCTION. THE SURNAME OF STEVENSON

CHAPTER I. DOMESTIC ANNALS

CHAPTER II. THE SERVICE OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

CHAPTER III. THE BUILDING OF THE BELL ROCK

ADDITIONAL MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS

I. RANDOM MEMORIES

I. THE COAST OF FIFE

II. RANDOM MEMORIES

II. THE EDUCATION OF AN ENGINEER

III. A CHAPTER ON DREAMS

IV. BEGGARS

V. THE LANTERN-BEARERS

LATER ESSAYS

I. FONTAINEBLEAU

II. A NOTE ON REALISM

III. ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE

IV. THE MORALITY OF THE PROFESSION OF LETTERS

V. BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME

VI. THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW

VII. LETTER TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO PROPOSES TO EMBRACE THE CAREER OF ART

VIII. PULVIS ET UMBRA

IX. A CHRISTMAS SERMON

X. FATHER DAMIEN

XI. MY FIRST BOOK – “TREASURE ISLAND”

XII. THE GENESIS OF “THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE”

XIII. RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM

XIV. REFLECTIONS AND REMARKS ON HUMAN LIFE

XV. THE IDEAL HOUSE

LAY MORALS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

PRAYERS

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From the thirteenth century onwards, the name, under the various disguises of Stevinstoun, Stevensoun, Stevensonne, Stenesone, and Stewinsoune, spread across Scotland from the mouth of the Firth of Forth to the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. Four times at least it occurs as a place-name. There is a parish of Stevenston in Cunningham; a second place of the name in the Barony of Bothwell in Lanark; a third on Lyne, above Drochil Castle; the fourth on the Tyne, near Traprain Law. Stevenson of Stevenson (co. Lanark) swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296, and the last of that family died after the Restoration. Stevensons of Hirdmanshiels, in Midlothian, rode in the Bishops’ Raid of Aberlady, served as jurors, stood bail for neighbours – Hunter of Polwood, for instance – and became extinct about the same period, or possibly earlier. A Stevenson of Luthrie and another of Pitroddie make their bows, give their names, and vanish. And by the year 1700 it does not appear that any acre of Scots land was vested in any Stevenson.1

“I was made to take joyfully the spoiling of my goods, and with pleasure for His name’s sake wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. I lay four months in the coldest season of the year in a haystack in my father’s garden, and a whole February in the open fields not far from Camragen, and this I did without the least prejudice from the night air; one night, when lying in the fields near to the Carrick-Miln, I was all covered with snow in the morning. Many nights have I lain with pleasure in the churchyard of Old Daily, and made a grave my pillow; frequently have I resorted to the old walls about the glen, near to Camragen, and there sweetly rested.” The visible hand of God protected and directed him. Dragoons were turned aside from the bramble-bush where he lay hidden. Miracles were performed for his behoof. “I got a horse and a woman to carry the child, and came to the same mountain, where I wandered by the mist before; it is commonly known by the name of Kellsrhins: when we came to go up the mountain, there came on a great rain, which we thought was the occasion of the child’s weeping, and she wept so bitterly, that all we could do could not divert her from it, so that she was ready to burst. When we got to the top of the mountain, where the Lord had been formerly kind to my soul in prayer, I looked round me for a stone, and espying one, I went and brought it. When the woman with me saw me set down the stone, she smiled, and asked what I was going to do with it. I told her I was going to set it up as my Ebenezer, because hitherto, and in that place, the Lord had formerly helped, and I hoped would yet help. The rain still continuing, the child weeping bitterly, I went to prayer, and no sooner did I cry to God, but the child gave over weeping, and when we got up from prayer, the rain was pouring down on every side, but in the way where we were to go there fell not one drop; the place not rained on was as big as an ordinary avenue.” And so great a saint was the natural butt of Satan’s persecutions. “I retired to the fields for secret prayer about midnight. When I went to pray I was much straitened, and could not get one request, but ‘Lord pity,’ ‘Lord help’; this I came over frequently; at length the terror of Satan fell on me in a high degree, and all I could say even then was – ‘Lord help.’ I continued in the duty for some time, notwithstanding of this terror. At length I got up to my feet, and the terror still increased; then the enemy took me by the arm-pits, and seemed to lift me up by my arms. I saw a loch just before me, and I concluded he designed to throw me there by force; and had he got leave to do so, it might have brought a great reproach upon religion.”6 But it was otherwise ordered, and the cause of piety escaped that danger.7

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And by the tail of the document, which is torn, I see she goes on to ask the bereaved family to seek her a new place. It is extraordinary that people should have been so deceived in so careless an impostor; that a few sprinkled “God willings” should have blinded them to the essence of this venomous letter; and that they should have been at the pains to bind it in with others (many of them highly touching) in their memorial of harrowing days. But the good ladies were without guile and without suspicion; they were victims marked for the axe, and the religious impostors snuffed up the wind as they drew near.

I have referred above to my grandmother; it was no slip of the pen: for by an extraordinary arrangement, in which it is hard not to suspect the managing hand of a mother, Jean Smith became the wife of Robert Stevenson. Mrs. Smith had failed in her design to make her son a minister, and she saw him daily more immersed in business and worldly ambition. One thing remained that she might do: she might secure for him a godly wife, that great means of sanctification; and she had two under her hand, trained by herself, her dear friends and daughters both in law and love – Jean and Janet. Jean’s complexion was extremely pale, Janet’s was florid; my grandmother’s nose was straight, my great-aunt’s aquiline; but by the sound of the voice, not even a son was able to distinguish one from other. The marriage of a man of twenty-seven and a girl of twenty who have lived for twelve years as brother and sister, is difficult to conceive. It took place, however, and thus in 1799 the family was still further cemented by the union of a representative of the male or worldly element with one of the female and devout.

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