The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls Part 1

The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls.

by Jacqueline M. Overton.

CHAPTER I

THE LIGHTHOUSE BUILDERS

"... For the sake Of these, my kinsmen and my countrymen, Who early and late in the windy ocean toiled To plant a star for seamen."

The pirate, Ralph the Rover, so legend tells, while cruising off the coast of Scotland searching for booty or sport, sank the warning bell on one of the great rocks, to plague the good Abbot of Arbroath who had put it there. The following year the Rover returned and perished himself on the same rock.

In the life of one of Scotland's great men, Robert Louis Stevenson, we find proud record of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, having built Bell Rock Lighthouse on this same spot years afterward.

No story of Robert Louis Stevenson's life would be complete that failed to mention the work done for Scotland and the world at large by the two men he held most dear, the engineers, his father and grandfather.

When Robert Stevenson, his grandfather, received his appointment on the Board of Northern Lights the art of lighthouse building in Scotland had just begun. Its bleak, rocky sh.o.r.es were world-famous for their danger, and few mariners cared to venture around them. At that time the coast "was lighted at a single point, the Isle of May, in the jaws of the Firth of Forth, where, on a tower already a hundred and fifty years old, an open coal-fire blazed in an open chaufer. The whole archipelago thus nightly plunged in darkness was shunned by seagoing vessels." [Footnote: Stevenson, "Family of Engineers."]

The board at first proposed building four new lights, but afterward built many more, so that to-day Scotland stands foremost among the nations for the number and splendor of her coast lights.

Their construction in those early days meant working against tremendous obstacles and dangers, and the life of the engineer was a hazardous one.

"The seas into which his labors carried him were still scarce charted, the coasts still dark; his way on sh.o.r.e was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure much on horseback by dubious bridle-track through unfrequented wildernesses; he must sometimes plant his lighthouses in the very camp of wreckers.

"The aid of steam was not yet. At first in random coasting sloop, and afterwards in the cutter belonging to the service, the engineer must ply and run amongst these multiplied dangers and sometimes late into the stormy autumn."

All of which failed to daunt Robert Stevenson who loved action and adventure and the scent of things romantic.

"Not only had towers to be built and apparatus transplanted, the supply of oil must be maintained and the men fed, in the same inaccessible and distant scenes, a whole service with its routine ... had to be called out of nothing; and a new trade (that of light-keeper) to be taught, recruited and organized."

Bell Rock was only one of twenty lighthouses Robert Stevenson helped to build, but it was by far the most difficult one ... and even to-day, after it has been lighted for more than a hundred years, it still remains unique--a monument to his skill.

Bell Rock was practically a reef completely submerged at full tide and only a few feet of its crest visible at low water. To raise a tower on it meant placing a foundation under water, a new and perilous experiment.

"Work upon the rock in the earliest stages was confined to the calmest days of the summer season, when the tides were lowest, the water smoothest, and the wind in its calmest mood. Under such conditions the men were able to stay on the site for about five hours....

"One distinct drawback was the necessity to establish a depot some distance from the erecting site. Those were the days before steam navigation, and the capricious sailing craft offered the only means of maintaining communication between rock and sh.o.r.e, and for the conveyance of men and materials to and fro....

"A temporary beacon was placed on the reef, while adjacent to the site selected for the tower a smith's forge was made fast, so as to withstand the dragging motion of the waves when the rock was submerged. The men were housed on the _Smeaton_, which, during the spells of work on the rock, rode at anchor a short distance away in deep water." [Footnote: Talbot, "Lights.h.i.+ps and Lighthouses."]

Once the engineers were all but lost when the _Smeaton_ slipped her moorings and left them stranded on the rock.

In spite of all the obstacles, the work was completed at the end of two years and the light was shown for the first time February 1, 1811.

"I found Robert Stevenson an appreciative and intelligent companion,"

writes Sir Walter Scott in his journal, speaking of a cruise he made among the islands of Scotland with a party of engineers. The notes made by him on this trip were used afterward in his two stories, "The Pirate"

and "Lord of the Isles."

"My grandfather was king in the service to his finger-tips," wrote Louis Stevenson. "All should go his way, from the princ.i.p.al light-keeper's coat to the a.s.sistant's fender, from the gravel in the garden walks to the bad smell in the kitchen, or the oil spots on the storeroom floor.

It might be thought there was nothing more calculated to awaken men's resentment, and yet his rule was not more thorough than it was beneficent. His thought for the keepers was continual.... When a keeper was sick, he lent him his horse and sent him mutton and brandy from the s.h.i.+p.... They dwelt, many of them, in uninhabited isles or desert forelands, totally cut off from shops.

"No servant of the Northern Lights came to Edinburgh but he was entertained at Baxter Place. There at his own table my grandfather sat down delightedly with his broad-spoken, homespun officers."

As he grew old his "medicine and delight" was his annual trip among his lighthouses, but at length there came a time when this joy was taken away from him and there came "the end of all his cruising; the knowledge that he had looked the last on Sunburgh, and the wild crags of Skye, and the Sound of Mull; that he was never again to hear the surf break in Clashcarnock; never again to see lighthouse after lighthouse (all younger than himself, and the more, part of his own device) open in the hour of dusk their flower of fire, or the topaz and ruby interchange on the summit of Bell Rock."

Throughout the rank and file of his men he was adored. "I have spoken with many who knew him; I was his grandson, and their words may very well have been words of flattery; but there was one thing that could not be affected, and that was the look that came over their faces at the name of Robert Stevenson."

Of his family of thirteen children, three of his sons became engineers.

Thomas Stevenson, the father of Robert Louis, like the others of his family, contributed largely to lighthouse building and harbor improvement, serving under his older brother, Allen, in building the Skerryvore, one of the most famous deep-sea lights erected on a treacherous reef off the west coast where, for more than forty years, one wreck after another had occurred.

"From the navigator's point of view, the danger of this spot lay chiefly in the fact that it was so widely scattered. The ridge runs like a broken backbone for a distance of some eight miles.... In rough weather the whole of the rocks are covered, and the waves, beating heavily on the ma.s.s, convert the scene into one of indescribable tumult....

"There was only one point where a tower could be placed, and this was so exposed that the safe handling of men and material const.i.tuted a grave responsibility."

It was necessary to erect a tower one hundred and thirty feet high; "the loftiest and weightiest work of its character that had ever been contemplated up to this time....

"The Atlantic swell, which rendered landing on the ridge precarious and hazardous, did not permit the men to be housed upon a floating home, as had been the practice in the early days of the Bell Rock tower. In order to permit the work to go forward as uninterruptedly as the sea would allow, a peculiar barrack was erected. It was a house on stilts, the legs being sunk firmly into the rock, with the living quarters perched some fifty feet up in the air.

"Residence in this tower was eerie. The men climbed the ladder and entered a small room, which served the purposes of kitchen, living-room, and parlor....

"When a storm was raging, the waves, as they combed over the rock, shook the legs violently and scurried under the floor in seething foam.

Now and again a roller, rising higher than its fellows, broke upon the rock and sent a ma.s.s of water against the flooring to hammer at the door. Above the living-room were the sleeping quarters, high and dry, save when a shower of spray fell upon the roof and walls like heavy hail.... The men, however, were not perturbed. Sleeping, even under such conditions, was far preferable to doubtful rest in a bunk upon an attendant vessel, rolling and pitching with the motion of the sea. They had had a surfeit of such experience ... while the barrack was under erection.

"For two years it withstood the seas without incident, and the engineer and men came to regard the eyrie as safe as a house on sh.o.r.e. But one night the little colony received a shock. The angry Atlantic got one or two of its trip-hammer blows well home, and smashed the structure to fragments. Fortunately, at the time it was untenanted."

No time was lost in rebuilding the barrack and this time it withstood all tests until it was torn down after Skerryvore was finished.

"While the foundations were being prepared, and until the barrack was constructed, the men ran other terrible risks every morning and night landing upon and leaving the polished surface of the reef. Five months during the summer was the working season, but even then many days and weeks were often lost owing to the swell being too great to permit the rowing boat to come alongside. The engineer relates that the work was 'a good lesson in the school of patience,' because the delays were frequent and galling, while every storm which got up and expended its rage upon the reef left its mark indelibly among the engineer's stock in trade.

Cranes and other materials were swept away as if they were corks; las.h.i.+ngs, no matter how strong, were snapped like pack-threads.

"Probably the worst experience was when the men on the rock were weather-bound for seven weeks during one season.... Their provisions sank to a very low level, they ran short of fuel, their sodden clothing was worn to rags....

"Six years were occupied in the completion of the work, and, as may be imagined, the final touches were welcomed with thankfulness by those who had been concerned in the enterprise."

It was in meteorological researches and illumination of lighthouses, however, that Thomas Stevenson did his greatest work. It was he who brought to perfection the revolving light now so generally used.

In spite of this and other valuable inventions his name has remained little known, owing to the fact that none of his inventions were ever patented. The Stevensons believed that, holding government appointments, any original work they did belonged to the nation. "A patent not only brings in money but spreads reputation," writes his son, "and my father's instruments enter anonymously into a hundred light rooms and are pa.s.sed anonymously over in a hundred reports, where the least considerable patent would stand out and tell its author's story."

He was beloved among a wide circle of friends and the esteem of those in his profession was shown when in 1884 they chose him for president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. To the general public, however, he remained unknown in spite of the fact that "His lights were in all parts of the world guiding the mariners."

CHAPTER II

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

"As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the window of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play."