Robert Louis Stevenson | Page 2

baptised--valued greatly this
doctrine of heredity, and always bore enthusiastic testimony to the
influence his ancestry and antecedents had exercised in moulding his
temperament and character. He was proud of that ancestry, with no
foolish pride, but rather with that appreciation of all that was noble and
worthy in his forefathers, which made him desire to be, in his own
widely differing life-work, as good a man as they.
... 'And I--can I be base?'--he says; 'I must arise, O father, and to port
Some lost complaining seaman pilot home.'
He had reason to think highly of the honourable name which he
received from his father's family. Britain and the whole world has much
for which to thank the Stevensons; not only all along our rough north
coasts, but in every part of the world where the mariner rejoices to see
their beacon's blaze have the firm, who are consulting engineers to the
Indian, the New Zealand, and the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, lit those
lights of which Rudyard Kipling in his 'Songs of the English,' sings--
'Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees; Our
loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas; From reef
and rock and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe, The coastguard
lights of England watch the ships of England go.'
Wild and wind-swept are the isles and headlands of the northern half of
the sister kingdoms, but from their dreariest points the lights that have

been kindled by Robert Stevenson, the hero of Bell Rock fame, and his
descendants flash and flame across the sea, and make the name of
Stevenson a word of blessing to the storm-tossed sailor.
The author was third in descent from that Robert Stevenson, who, by
skill and heroism, planted the lighthouse on the wave-swept Bell
Rock--only uncovered for the possibility of work for a short time at low
tides--and made safety on the North Sea, where before there had been
death and danger, from the cruel cliffs that guard that iron coast.
What child has not thrilled and shivered over the ballad of 'Ralph the
Rover,' who, hoping doubtless that the wrecked ships might fall into his
own piratical hands, cut the bell which the good monks of
Aberbrothock had placed on the fatal rock, and who, by merited justice,
was for lack of the bell himself, on his return voyage, lost on that very
spot! What boy has not loved the story of one of the greatest
engineering feats that patience and skill has ever accomplished!
If other young folk so loved it what a depth of interest must not that
noble story have had for the grandson of the hero, whose childish soul
was full of chivalry and romance, and whose boyish eyes saw visions
of the future and pictures of the past as no ordinary child could see
them, for his was the gift of genius, and even the commonplace things
of life were glorified to him.
Alan Stevenson, who was the father of Robert, died of fever when in
the island of St Christopher on a visit to his brother, who managed the
foreign business of the Glasgow West India house with which they
were connected. The brother unfortunately dying of the same fever,
business matters were somewhat complicated, and Alan's widow and
little boy had to endure straitened circumstances. The mother strained
every nerve to have her boy, whom she intended for the ministry, well
educated, and the lad profited by her self-denial. Her second marriage,
however, very fortunately changed her plans for Robert, for her second
husband, Mr Smith, had a mechanical bent which led him to make
many researches on the subject of lighting and lighthouses, and finding
that his stepson shared his tastes, he encouraged him in his engineering
and mechanical studies.

The satisfactory results of Mr Smith's researches caused the first Board
of Northern Lights to make him their engineer, and he designed
Kinnaird Head, the first light they exhibited, and illuminated it in 1787.
He was ultimately succeeded as engineer to the Board by his stepson,
of Bell Rock fame, and his descendant, Mr David Alan Stevenson, who
now holds the post, is the sixth in the family who has done so. Young
Stevenson not only became his stepfather's partner but married his
eldest daughter, and with her founded a home that was evidently a
happy one, for the great engineer was a most unselfish character, and
made an excellent husband and father. He was a notable volunteer in
the days when a French invasion was greatly feared, and all his life he
took a keen interest in the volunteering movement.
Like his son Thomas, Mr Robert Stevenson was a man of much
intellect and humour, though of a grave and serious character. He