Robert Louis Stevenson | Page 6

tiny child propped up against his bed pillows, and with all his toys scattered on the coverlet. Beneath it are four verses that give a wonderfully graphic description of the life the little boy too often led.
In the last verse he was a giant who saw before him all 'the pleasant land of counterpane,' and in the very word 'pleasant' the temperament of the child shows itself. How many children would have found anything 'pleasant' in the enforced days of lie-a-bed quietness, and would have made no murmurs over the hard fate which forbade to them the active joys of other boys and girls?
But this small lad had a sweet temper and an unselfish, contented disposition, and so he bore the burden of his bad health as bravely in those days as he did in after years, and made for himself plays and pleasures with his nimble brain while his weary body was often tired and restless in that bed whereof he had so much. His mother used to describe, with the same graphic touch that gives life to all her son wrote, the bright games the little fellow invented for himself when he was well enough to be up and about, and tell how, in a corner of the room, he made for himself a wonder-world all his own, in which heroes and heroines of romance loved and fought and walked and talked at the bidding of the wizard in frock and pinafore.
It was not all indoor life happily, and if there were many bad days there were some good and glad ones also, when he was well and allowed to be out and at play in the world of outdoor life he always loved so dearly.
Two quaint pictures of the child as he was in those days have been supplied by his aunt, Miss Balfour. One of them is from a note-book of his mother's, in which she had jotted down a few things that had been said or written of him. The first interesting description is that given by a very dear old friend of the family, and is an exceedingly early one, for it was written in October 1853, when Louis was barely three, and the family had just settled in Inverleith Terrace.
'One day,' she says, 'I called and missed you, and found Cummie' (the valued nurse) 'and Louis just starting for town, so we walked up together by Canonmills, keeping the middle of the road all the way.'
Louis, she continues, was dressed in a navy blue pelisse trimmed with fur, a beaver hat, a fur ruff, and white gloves. A very quaint little figure he must have been with the thin delicate face and the wonderfully bright eyes, so luminous and far-seeing even then!
The tiny mite repeated hymns all the way, 'emphasising so prettily,' the friend goes on to say, 'with the dear little baby hands. All of a sudden, when near St Mary's Church he stood still, and looking in my face, said:
'"But by-the-bye did I ever give you my likeness?"
'"No," was the reply, "have you got your likeness?"
'"Oh! yes, I will give it you; I will send it by the real post to-morrow."'
'It seemed,' the lady adds, 'as if the wonderful little mind had been considering what other kind thing he could do besides repeating the hymns.'
The whole incident is an excellent example of his sweetness of disposition, and his innate thoughtfulness for others. It is pleasant to know that the pretty promise was fulfilled, Mrs Stevenson herself acting 'postman,' and taking the likeness to her friend next day.
The second picture is from the memory of Miss Balfour herself. She too describes the blue pelisse trimmed with grey astrakhan, which he wore in the winter of 1853 and '54. In the spring of 1854 she went to the Stevensons' house to tell her sister that their father had been given the degree of Doctor of Divinity. The small Louis, on hearing his grandfather spoken of as 'Doctor,' immediately said:
'Now that grandpapa is a doctor, surely you'll have him instead of Dr Hunter?'
A wonderfully quick thought and old-fashioned remark from a child not four years old, but a suggestively sad one too; he already knew so well the necessity of a doctor to help human bodies, although he could not yet comprehend the use of one for the 'cure' of human souls!
When he heard that his aunt was going to see a relative in Saxe Coburg Place, he begged to be allowed to go with her, and, the permission granted, started off in great pride on his very first expedition without his nurse, that faithful friend of the Stevenson family having promised to follow later to take him home. The aunt at least had cause to remember that walk! He had started gloveless, and