ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON   (1850-1894)

Heather Ale
Death
"Bright is the ring of words"
Ticonderoga

           Robert Louis Stevenson is remembered primarily as the author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Three of the poems below, "Heather Ale," "Death," and "Ticonderoga," are as grim as the story of the doctor who wishes to indulge his evil impulses by separating them from his respectable self. "Ticonderoga" even presents us with a brief glimpse of the doubleness we have come to associate with Dr. Jekyll, when the Cameron of the poem sees his "weird" and realizes that its presence signals his death. However, the short poem "Bright is the ring of words" is significantly more optimistic; in it, poetry itself becomes a fantastical spirit that has the power to transcend death. This doubleness is appropriate for an author as versatile as Stevenson, who wrote both one of the most frighteningly memorable gothic tales and A Child's Garden of Verses (1885).
           Stevenson was born in Edinburgh into a family that had become both famous and wealthy for building lighthouses. His father Thomas was a lighthouse engineer in the family tradition. Both Thomas and Stevenson's mother Margaret, a minister's daughter, were devout Calvinists who would later be pained by his rebellion against established religious teachings. As a child, Stevenson developed the tuberculosis that would trouble him for the rest of his life. When he could not sleep, kept awake at night by violent coughing, his nurse Alison Cunningham would stay awake with him, often until dawn. "Cummie," as he called her, was even more devout than his parents; she taught him the Bible and a vivid fear of Hell, but also nurtured his imagination with stories of witches and ghosts. He was to remember her fondly until his death.
           Stevenson's early education was necessarily irregular, since he was often too ill to attend school. In 1867 he entered the University of Edinburgh to study engineering, as his father desired. However, his literary interests soon became evident. He joined the Speculative Society, a literary and debating organization to which Sir Walter Scott had once belonged, and with members of the Society he attempted to establish the Edinburgh University Magazine. In 1871, determined to become a writer, he refused to continue his studies as an engineer. To satisfy his father, who was angered enough by Stevenson's religious opinions that he had threatened to disinherit his son, Stevenson agreed to study law. However, although he was admitted to the Bar in 1875, he never practiced. Instead, he began contributing essays to the literary magazines of the day, such as the Cornhill and Longman's.
           Because of his continuing illness, Stevenson spent considerable time travelling, often on the Continent. In 1876, while on a trip to France, he met and fell in love with Fanny Osbourne, an American woman who was studying art. Fanny was not only ten years older than Stevenson, but also married, albeit unhappily, and the mother of two children. In 1878 Fanny returned to American and began divorce proceedings. The next year, Stevenson followed her to California, where they were married in 1880. During those years, Stevenson published several collections of essays, often about his travels: Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (1878), An Inland Voyage (1878), Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879), Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881), Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882), and The Silverado Squatters (1883). He also published his first collection of short stories, New Arabian Nights (1882). However, essays and short stories could not support a family. Although Stevenson's parents were not initially pleased with his marriage, his father gave him an annuity which allowed him to concentrate on his writing, and as a wedding present he bought the bride and groom a house in Bournemouth, called "Skerryvore," where Stevenson and Fanny lived from 1884 to 1887.
           After their marriage, Fanny became both Stevenson's nurse and his most important critic. Her care allowed him to enter his period of greatest productivity. His first novel, Treasure Island (1883), was inspired by games he had played with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne. Other novels and collections of short stories followed: The Black Arrow (serialized in 1883 although not published as a novel until 1888), Prince Otto (1885), More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (1885), and Kidnapped (1886). During this period Stevenson also published A Child's Garden of Verses, which he dedicated to Alison Cunningham. However, the novel that gained him the greatest attention was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Unfortunately, Stevenson's illness continued, and he often spent his days in bed, writing and receiving visitors.
           After his father's death in 1887, which left him financially independent, Stevenson left Britain with Margaret and Fanny, in search of a climate that would be more beneficial for his lungs. He travelled first to America, then spent several years sailing the South Seas. Finally, he and Fanny settled in Samoa, where he purchased an estate that he called "Vailima," or "Five Waters." During these final years, he published two more collections of poems, Underwoods (1887) and Ballads (1890), as well as collections of essays and short stories: The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables (1887), Memories and Portraits (1887), In the South Seas (1890), Across the Plains, with Other Memories and Essays (1892), and Island Nights' Entertainments (1893). He also published two novels, The Master of Ballantrae (1889) and Catriona (1893), and began two more, St. Ives and a novel that promised to be one of his greatest, Weir of Hermiston. He died suddenly, of the illness with which he had been struggling for so long; just that morning he had been working on Weir of Hermiston, which was left unfinished by his death. As he had requested, he was buried at the top of Mount Vaea, above Vailima. Weir of Hermiston was published in an unfinished version in 1896, and St. Ives was published in 1897.
 
HEATHER ALE
A Galloway Legend

From the bonny bells of heather
     They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
     Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
     And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
     In their dwellings underground.

There rose a king in Scotland,
     A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
     He hunted them like roes.
Over miles of the red mountain
     He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish bodies
     Of the dying and the dead.

Summer came in the country,
     Red was the heather bell;
But the manner of the brewing
     Was none alive to tell.
In graves that were like children's
     On many a mountain head,
The Brewsters of the Heather
     Lay numbered with the dead.

The king in the red moorland
     Rode on a summer's day;
And the bees hummed, and the curlews
     Cried beside the way.
The king rode, and was angry,
     Black was his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather
     And lack the Heather Ale.

It fortuned that his vassals,
     Riding free on the heath,
Came on a stone that was fallen
     And vermin hid beneath.
Rudely plucked from their hiding,
     Never a word they spoke:
A son and his aged father –
     Last of the dwarfish folk.

The king sat high on his charger,
     He looked on the little men;
And the dwarfish and swarthy couple
     Looked at the king again.
Down by the shore he had them;
     And there on the giddy brink –
"I will give you life, ye vermin,
     For the secret of the drink."

There stood the son and father,
     And they looked high and low;
The heather was red around them,
     The sea rumbled below.
And up and spoke the father,
     Shrill was his voice to hear:
"I have a word in private,
     A word for the royal ear.

"Life is dear to the aged,
     And honour a little thing;
I would gladly sell the secret,"
     Quoth the Pict to the King.
His voice was small as a sparrow's,
     And shrill and wonderful clear:
"I would gladly sell my secret,
     Only my son I fear.

"For life is a little matter,
     And death is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honour
     Under the eye of my son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
     And cast him far in the deep;
And it's I will tell the secret
     That I have sworn to keep."

They took the son and bound him,
     Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
     And flung him far and strong,
And the sea swallowed his body,
     Like that of a child of ten; –
And there on the cliff stood the father,
     Last of the dwarfish men,

"True was the word I told you:
     Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the sapling courage
     That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the torture,
     Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
     The secret of Heather Ale."

Note to Heather Ale
         Among the curiosities of human nature, this legend claims a high place. It is needless to remind the reader that the Picts were never exterminated, and form to this day a large proportion of the folk of Scotland: occupying the eastern and the central parts, from the Firth of Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord of Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors is already strange: that it should have begotten this wild legend seems incredible. Is it possible the chronicler's error was merely nominal? that what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to receive, about the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and perhaps Lappish savages, small of stature, black of hue, dwelling underground – possibly also the distillers of some forgotten spirit? See Mr. Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands.
 
DEATH

We are as maidens one and all,
     In some shut convent place,
Pleased with the flowers, the service bells,
     The cloister's shady grace,

That whiles, with fearful, fluttering hearts,
     Look outward thro' the grate
And down the long white road, up which,
     Some morning, soon or late,

Shall canter on his great grey horse
     That splendid acred Lord
Who comes to lead us forth – his wife,
     But half with our accord.

With fearful, fluttered hearts we wait –
     We meet him, bathed in tears;
We are so loath to leave behind
     Those tranquil convent years;

So loath to meet the pang, to take
     (On some poor chance of bliss)
Life's labour on the windy sea
     For a bower as still as this.

Weeping, we mount the crowded aisle,
     And weeping after us
The bridesmaids follow – Come to me!
     I will not meet you thus,

Pale rider to the convent gate.
     Come, O rough bridegroom, Death,
Where, bashful bride, I wait you, veiled,
     Flush-faced, with shaken breath;

I do not fear your kiss. I dream
     New days, secure from strife,
And, bride-like, in the future hope –
     A quiet household life.
 
"Bright is the ring of words"

Bright is the ring of words
     When the right man rings them,
Fair the fall of songs
     When the singer sings them.
Still they are carolled and said –
     On wings they are carried –
After the singer is dead
     And the maker buried.

Low as the singer lies
     In the field of heather,
Songs of his fashion bring
     The swains together.
And when the west is red
     With the sunset embers,
The lover lingers and sings
     And the maid remembers.
 
TICONDEROGA

This is the tale of the man
     Who heard a word in the night
In the land of the heathery hills,
     In the days of the feud and the fight.
By the sides of the rainy sea,
     Where never a stranger came,
On the awful lips of the dead,
     He heard the outlandish name.
It sang in his sleeping ears,
     It hummed in his waking head:
The name – Ticonderoga,
     The utterance of the dead.

     I. The Saying of the Name

On the loch-sides of Appin,
     When the mist blew from the sea,
A Stewart stood with a Cameron:
     An angry man was he.
The blood beat in his ears,
     The blood ran hot to his head,
The mist blew from the sea,
     And there was the Cameron dead.

"O, what have I done to my friend,
     O, what have I done to mysel',
That he should be cold and dead,
     And I in the danger of all?
Nothing but danger about me,
     Danger behind and before,
Death at wait in the heather
     In Appin and Mamore,
Hate at all of the ferries
     And death at each of the fords,
Camerons priming gunlocks
     And Camerons sharpening swords."

But this was a man of counsel,
     This was a man of a score,
There dwelt no pawkier Stewart
     In Appin or Mamore.
He looked on the blowing mist,
     He looked on the awful dead,
And there came a smile on his face
     And there slipped a thought in his head.

Out over cairn and moss,
     Out over scrog and scaur,
He ran as runs the clansman
     That bears the cross of war.
His heart beat in his body,
     His hair clove to his face,
When he came at last in the gloaming
     To the dead man's brother's place.
The east was white with the moon,
     The west with the sun was red,
And there, in the house-doorway,
     Stood the brother of the dead.

"I have slain a man to my danger,
     I have slain a man to my death.
I put my soul in your hands,"
     The panting Stewart saith.
"I lay it bare in your hands,
     For I know your hands are leal;
And be you my targe and bulwark
     From the bullet and the steel."

Then up and spoke the Cameron,
     And gave him his hand again:
"There shall never a man in Scotland
     Set faith in me in vain;
And whatever man you have slaughtered,
     Of whatever name or line,
By my sword and yonder mountain,
     I make your quarrel mine.¹
I bid you in to my fireside,
     I share with you house and hall;
It stands upon my honour
     To see you safe from all."

It fell in the time of midnight,
     When the fox barked in the den
And the plaids were over the faces
     In all the houses of men,
That as the living Cameron
     Lay sleepless on his bed,
Out of the night and the other world,
     Came in to him the dead.

"My blood is on the heather,
     My bones are on the hill;
There is joy in the home of ravens
     That the young shall eat their fill.
My blood is poured in the dust,
     My soul is spilled in the air;
And the man that has undone me
     Sleeps in my brother's care."

"I'm wae for your death, my brother,
     But if all of my house were dead,
I couldnae withdraw the plighted hand,
     Nor break the word once said."

"O, what shall I say to our father,
     In the place to which I fare?
O, what shall I say to our mother,
     Who greets to see me there?
And to all the kindly Camerons
     That have lived and died long-syne –
Is this the word you send them,
     Fause-hearted brother mine?"

"It's neither fear nor duty,
     It's neither quick nor dead
Shall gar me withdraw the plighted hand,
     Or break the word once said."

Thrice in the time of midnight,
     When the fox barked in the den,
And the plaids were over the faces
     In all the houses of men,
Thrice as the living Cameron
     Lay sleepless on his bed,
Out of the night and the other world
     Came in to him the dead,
And cried to him for vengeance
     On the man that laid him low;
And thrice the living Cameron
     Told the dead Cameron, no.

"Thrice have you seen me, brother,
     But now shall see me no more,
Till you meet your angry fathers
     Upon the farther shore.
Thrice have I spoken, and now,
     Before the cock be heard,
I take my leave for ever
     With the naming of a word.
It shall sing in your sleeping ears,
     It shall hum in your waking head,
The name – Ticonderoga,
     And the warning of the dead."

Now when the night was over
     And the time of people's fears,
The Cameron walked abroad,
     And the word was in his ears.

"Many a name I know,
     But never a name like this;
O, where shall I find a skilly man
     Shall tell me what it is?"

With many a man he counselled
     Of high and low degree,
With the herdsmen on the mountains
     And the fishers of the sea.
And he came and went unweary,
     And read the books of yore,
And the runes that were written of old
     On stones upon the moor.
And many a name he was told,
     But never the name of his fears –
Never, in east or west,
     The name that rang in his ears:
Names of men and of clans,
     Names for the grass and the tree,
For the smallest tarn in the mountains,
     The smallest reef in the sea:
Names for the high and low,
     The names of the craig and the flat;
But in all the land of Scotland,
     Never a name like that.

     II. The Seeking of the Name

And now there was speech in the south,
     And a man of the south that was wise,
A periwig'd lord of London,²
     Called on the clans to rise.
And the riders rode, and the summons
     Came to the western shore,
To the land of the sea and the heather,
     To Appin and Mamore.
It called on all to gather
     From every scrog and scaur,
That loved their fathers' tartan
     And the ancient game of war.
And down the watery valley
     And up the windy hill,
Once more, as in the olden,
     The pipes were sounding shrill;
Again in highland sunshine
     The naked steel was bright;
And the lads, once more in tartan
     Went forth again to fight.

"O, why should I dwell here
     With a weird upon my life,
When the clansmen shout for battle
     And the war-swords clash in strife?
I cannae joy at feast,
     I cannae sleep in bed,
For the wonder of the word
     And the warning of the dead.
It sings in my sleeping ears,
     It hums in my waking head,
The name – Ticonderoga,
     The utterance of the dead.
Then up, and with the fighting men
     To march away from here,
Till the cry of the great war-pipe
     Shall drown it in my ear!"

Where flew King George's ensign
     The plaided soldiers went:
They drew the sword in Germany,
     In Flanders pitched the tent.
The bells of foreign cities
     Rang far across the plain:
They passed the happy Rhine,
     They drank the rapid Main.
Through Asiatic jungles
     The Tartans filed their way
And the neighing of the war-pipes
     Struck terror in Cathay.³

"Many a name have I heard," he thought,
     "In all the tongues of men,
Full many a name both here and there,
     Full many both now and then.
When I was at home in my father's house
     In the land of the naked knee,
Between the eagles that fly in the lift
     And the herrings that swim in the sea,
And now that I am a captain-man
     With a braw cockade in my hat –
Many a name have I heard," he thought,
     "But never a name like that."

     III. The Place of the Name

There fell a war in a woody place,
     Lay far across the sea,
A war of the march in the mirk midnight
     And the shot from behind the tree,
The shaven bead and the painted face,
     The silent foot in the wood,
In a land of a strange, outlandish tongue
     That was hard to be understood.

It fell about the gloaming
     The general stood with his staff,
He stood and he looked east and west
     With little mind to laugh.
"Far have I been and much have I seen,
     And kent both gain and loss,
But here we have woods on every hand
     And a kittle water to cross.
Far have I been and much have I seen,
     But never the beat of this;
And there's one must go down to that waterside
     To see how deep it is."

It fell in the dusk of the night
     When unco things betide,
The skilly captain, the Cameron,
     Went down to that waterside.
Canny and soft the captain went;
     And a man of the woody land,
With the shaven head and the painted face,
     Went down at his right hand.
It fell in the quiet night,
     There was never a sound to ken;
But all of the woods to the right and the left
     Lay filled with the painted men.

"Far have I been and much have I seen,
     Both as a man and boy,
But never have I set forth a foot
     On so perilous an employ."

It fell in the dusk of the night
     When unco things betide,
That he was aware of a captain-man
     Drew near to the waterside.
He was aware of his coming
     Down in the gloaming alone;
And he looked in the face of the man
     And lo! the face was his own.

"This is my weird," he said,
     "And now I ken the worst;
For many shall fall the morn,
     But I shall fall with the first.
O, you of the outland tongue,
     You of the painted face,
This is the place of my death;
     Can you tell me the name of the place?"

"Since the Frenchmen have been here
     They have called it Sault-Marie;
But that is a name for priests,
     And not for you and me.
It went by another word,"
     Quoth he of the shaven head:
"It was called Ticonderoga
     In the days of the great dead."

And it fell on the morrow's morning,
     In the fiercest of the fight,
That the Cameron bit the dust
     As he foretold at night;
And far from the hills of heather,
     Far from the isles of the sea,
He sleeps in the place of the name
     As it was doomed to be.

Notes to Ticonderoga
         Introduction. – I first heard this legend of my own country from that friend of men of letters, Mr. Alfred Nutt, "there in roaring London's central stream"; and since the ballad first saw the light of day in Scribner's Magazine, Mr. Nutt and Lord Archibald Campbell have been in public controversy on the facts. Two clans, the Camerons and the Campbells, lay claim to this bracing story; and they do well: the man who preferred his plighted troth to the commands and menaces of the dead is an ancestor worth disputing. But the Campbells must rest content: they have the broad lands and broad page of history; this appanage must be denied them; for between the name of Cameron and that of Campbell, the muse will never hesitate.
         Note 1. Mr. Nutt reminds me it was "by my sword and Ben Cruachan" the Cameron swore.
         Note 2. "A periwig'd lord of London." The first Pitt.
         Note 3. "Cathay." There must be some omission in General Stewart's charming History of the Highland Regiments, a book that might well be republished and continued; or it scarce appears how our friend could have got to China.