The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls | Page 5

town beating to arms behind their horses' tails--a
sorry handful thus riding for their lives, but with a man at their head
who was to return in a different temper, make a bold dash that
staggered Scotland, and die happily in the thick of the fight....
"The palace of Holyrood is a house of many memories.... Great people
of yore, kings and queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors played
their stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been plotted,
dancing has lasted deep into the night, murder has been done in its
chambers. There Prince Charlie held his phantom levées and in a very
gallant manner represented a fallen dynasty for some hours....
"There is an old story of the subterranean passage between the castle
and Holyrood and a bold Highland piper who volunteered to explore its

windings. He made his entrance by the upper end, playing a strathspey;
the curious footed it after him down the street, following his descent by
the sound of the chanter from below; until all of a sudden, about the
level of St. Giles the music came abruptly to an end, and the people in
the street stood at fault with hands uplifted. Whether he choked with
gases, or perished in a quag, or was removed bodily by the Evil One,
remains a point of doubt, but the piper has never again been seen or
heard of from that day to this. Perhaps he wandered down into the land
of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, when it is least expected, may
take a thought to revisit the sunlit upper world. That will be a strange
moment for the cabmen on the stands beside St. Giles, when they hear
the crone of his pipes reascending from the earth below their horses'
feet."
In Edinburgh to-day there are armed men and cannon in the castle high
up on the great rock above you: "You may see the troops marshalled on
the high parade, and at night after the early winter evenfall and in the
morning before the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad over
Edinburgh the sounds of drums and bugles." (Stevenson, "Essay on
Edinburgh.")
Long before Louis could write he made up verses and stories for
himself, and Cummie wrote them down for him. "I thought they were
rare nonsense then," she said, little dreaming that these same bits of
"rare nonsense" were the beginnings of what was to make "her boy"
famous across two seas in years to come.
He writes of her when speaking of long nights he lay awake unable to
sleep because of a troublesome cough: "How well I remember her
lifting me out of bed, carrying me to the window and showing me one
or two lit windows up in Queen Street across the dark belt of garden,
where also, we told each other, there might be sick little boys and their
nurses waiting, like us, for the morning."
Her devotion to him had its reward in the love he gave her all his life.
One of his early essays written when he was twenty and published in
the Juvenilia was called "Nurses." Fifteen years later came the
publication of the "Child's Garden of Verses" with a splendid tribute to

her as a dedication. He sent her copies of all his books, wrote letters to
her, and invited her to visit him. She herself tells that the last time she
ever saw him he said to her, "before a room full of people, 'It's you that
gave me a passion for the drama, Cummie,' 'Me, Master Lou,' I said, 'I
never put foot inside a playhouse in my life.' 'Ay, woman,' said he, 'but
it was the good dramatic way ye had of reciting the hymns.'"
When he was six years old his Uncle David offered a Bible
picture-book as a prize to the nephews who could write the best history
of Moses.
This was Louis's first real literary attempt. He was not able to write
himself, but dictated to his mother and illustrated the story and its cover
with pictures which he designed and painted himself.
He won the prize and from that time, his mother says, "it was the desire
of his heart to be an author."
During the winter of 1856-57 his favorite cousin, Robert Alan
Mowbray Stevenson, usually called Bob, visited them; a great treat for
Louis, not only because his ill health kept him from making many
companions of his own age, but because Bob loved many of the same
things he did and to "make believe" was as much a part of his life as
Louis's. Many fine games they had together; built toy theatres, the
scenery and characters for which they bought for a "penny plain and
twopence colored," and were never tired