No More Learning

VAILIMA.
CHRISTMAS AT SEA
From (Poems and Ballads. By permission of the authorized publishers,
Charles Scribner's Sons
T"
а
seaman
He sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where
scarce could
stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the
North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;


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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
13943
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So 's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coast-guard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every 'longshore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas morn,
And the house above the coast-guard's was the house where I was
born.
Oh! well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And oh the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails,” I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it,” our first mate, Jackson, cried. -
"It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.


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13944
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
A FABLE
From "The Lantern-Bearers)
T"?
HERE is one fable that touches very near the quick of life:
the fable of the monk who passed into the woods, heard
a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and
found himself on his return a stranger at his convent gates; for
he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there
survived but one to recognize him. It is not only in the woods
that this enchanter carols, though perhaps he is native there.
A11 life that is not merely mechanical is spun out of two
strands: seeking for that bird and hearing him. And it is just
this that makes life so hard to value, and the delight of each so
incommunicable; and just a knowledge of this, and a remem-
brance of those fortunate hours in which the bird has sung to
us, that fills us with such wonder when we turn the pages of
the realist. There, to be sure, we find a picture of life in so far
as it consists of mud and of old iron, cheap desires and cheap
fears, that which we are ashamed to remember and that which
we are careless whether we forget; but of the note of that time-
devouring nightingale we hear no news.
STRIVING AND FAILING
From A Christmas Sermon)
He goes
L"
IFE is not designed to minister to a man's vanity.
upon his long business most of the time with a hanging
head, and all the time like a blind child. Full of rewards
and pleasures as it is, — so that to see the day break, or the
moon rise, or to meet a friend, or to hear the dinner call when
he is hungry, fills him with surprising joys, - this world is yet
for him no abiding city. Friendships fall through, health fails,
weariness assails him; year after year he must thumb the hardly
varying record of his own weakness and folly. It is a friendly
process of detachment.
When the time comes that he should
go, there need be few illusions left about himself. « Here lies
one who meant well, tried a little, failed much,” — surely that may
be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed.


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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
13945
1
WE PASS THE FORTH
From Kidnapped. By permission of the authorized publishers, Charles
Scribner's Sons
T"
he month, as I have said, was not yet out, but it was already
far through August, and beautiful warm weather, with every
sign of an early and great harvest, when I was pronounced
able for my journey. Our money was now run to so low an
ebb that we must think first of all on speed; for if we came not
soon to Mr. Rankeillor's, or if when we came there he should fail
to help me, we must surely starve. In Alan's view, besides, the
hunt must have now greatly slackened; and the line of the Forth,
and even Stirling Bridge which is the main pass over that river,
would be watched with little interest.
“It's a chief principle in military affairs,” said he, “to go
where ye are least expected. Forth is our trouble; ye ken the
saying, 'Forth bridles the wild Hielandman. Well, if we seek
to creep round about the head of that river and come down
by Kippen or Balfron, it's just precisely there that they'll be
looking to lay hands on us. But if we stave on straight to the
auld Brig' of Stirling, I'll lay my sword they let us pass unchal-
lenged. ”
The first night, accordingly, we pushed to the house of a
Maclaren in Strathire, a friend of Duncan's, where we slept the
twenty-first of the month, and whence we set forth again about
the fall of night to make another easy stage. The twenty-second
we lay in a heather-bush on a hillside in Uam Var, within view
of a herd of deer,- the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine,
breathing sunshine, and on bone-dry ground, that I have ever
tasted. That night we struck Allan Water, and followed it down;
and coming to the edge of the hills saw the whole Carse of
Stirling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with the town and castle
on a hill in the midst of it, and the moon shining n the Links
of Forth.
"Now,” said Alan, “I kenna if ye care, but ye're in your own
land again. We passed the Hieland Line in the first hour; and
now if we could but pass yon crooked water, we might cast our
bonnets in the air. ”
In Allan Water, near by where it falls into the Forth, we
found a little sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, butterbur, and
the like low plants, that would just cover us if we lay flat. Here
-
»


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13946
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
it was we made our camp, within plain view of Stirling Castle;
whence we could hear the drums beat as some part of the gar-
rison paraded. Shearers worked all day in a field on one side
of the river; and we could hear the stones going on the hooks,
and the voices and even the words of the men talking. It be-
hoved to lie close and keep silent. But the sand of the little
isle was sun-warm, the green plants gave us shelter for our
heads, we had food and drink in plenty; and to crown all, we
were within sight of safety.
As soon as the shearers quit their work and the dusk began
to fall, we waded ashore and struck for the Bridge of Stirling,
keeping to the fields and under the field fences.
The bridge is close under the castle hill; an old, high, narrow
bridge with pinnacles along the parapet: and you may conceive
with how much interest I looked upon it, not only as a place
famous in history, but as the very doors of salvation to Alan and
myself. The moon was not yet up when we came there; a few
lights shone along the front of the fortress, and lower down a
few lighted windows in the town; but it was all mighty still, and
there seemed to be no guard upon the passage,
I was for pushing straight across; but Alan was more wary.
" It looks unco' quiet,” said he; but for all that, we'll lie
down here cannily behind a dike and make sure. ”
So we lay for about a quarter of an hour, whiles whispering,
whiles lying still and hearing nothing earthly but the washing of
the water on the piers. At last there came by an old, hobbling
woman with a crutch stick: who first stopped a little, close to
where we lay, and bemoaned herself and the long way she had
traveled; and then set forth again up the steep spring of the
bridge. The woman was so little, and the night still so dark,
that we soon lost sight of her; only heard the sound of her steps,
and her stick, and a cough that she had by fits, draw slowly
further away.
« She's bound to be across now, I whispered.
“Na,” said Alan, her foot still sounds boss * upon the bridge. ”
“
. ”
And just then - «Who goes ? » cried a voice, and we heard
the butt of a musket rattle on the stones. I must suppose the
sentry had been sleeping, so that had we tried we might have
passed unseen; but he was awake now, and the chance forfeited.
(
(C
* Hollow: pronounced bose.


## p. 13947 (#133) ##########################################

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
13947
»
“This'll never do,” said Alan. “This'll never, never do for
us, David. ”
And without another word he began to crawl away through
the fields; and a little after, being well out of eye-shot, got to
his feet again, and struck along a road that led to the eastward.
I could not conceive what he was doing; and indeed I was so
sharply cut by the disappointment, that I was little likely to be
pleased with anything. A moment back, and I had seen myself
knocking at Mr. Rankeillor's door to claim my inheritance, like
a hero in a ballad; and here was I back again, a wandering,
hunted blackguard, on the wrong side of Forth.
« Well ? » said I.
“Well,” said Alan, “what would ye have? They're none such
fools as I took them for. We have still the Forth to pass, Davie
- weary fall the rains that fed and the hillsides that guided it! ”
"And why go east ? ” said I.
Ou, just upon the chance! ” said he. “If we cannae pass
the river, we'll have to see what we can do for the firth. ”
« There are fords upon the river, and none upon the firth,”
said I.
“To be sure there are fords, and a bridge forbye,) quoth
Alan; "and of what service, when they are watched ? »
“Well,” said I, “but a river can be swum. ”
"By them that have the skill of it,” returned he: “but I have
yet to hear that either you or me is much of a hand at that
exercise; and for my own part, I swim like a stone. ”
"I'm not up to you in talking back, Alan," I said; but I
can see we're making bad worse. If it's hard to pass a river, it
stands to reason it must be worse to pass a sea. ”
"But there's such a thing as a boat,” says Alan, “or I'm the
more deceived. ”
“Ay, and such a thing as money,” says I.
< But for us that
have neither one nor other, they might just as well not have
been invented. ”
« Ye think so ? said Alan.
“I do that,” said I.
" David,” says he, "ye're a man of small invention and less
faith. But let me set my wits upon the hone, and if I cannae
beg, borrow, nor yet steal a boat, I'll make one! ”
"I think I see ye! ” said I. "And what's more than all that:
if ye pass a bridge, it can tell no tales; but if we pass the firth,
(
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»
C
(
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13948
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
there's the boat on the wrong side - somebody must have brought
it — the countryside will all be in a bizz
Man ! » cried Alan, “if I make a boat, I'll make a body to
take it back again! So deave me with no more of your non-
sense, but walk (for that's what you've got to do) — and let Alan
think for ye.
All night, then, we walked through the north side of the Carse
under the high line of the Ochil mountains; and by Alloa and
Clackmannan and Culross, all of which we avoided: and about
ten in the morning, mighty hungry and tired, came to the little
clachan of Limekilns. This is a place that sits near in by the
water-side, and looks across the Hope to the town of the Queens-
ferry. Smoke went up from both of these, and from other vil-
lages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being reaped;
two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming and going on the
Hope. It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me; and I
could not take my fill of gazing at these comfortable, green, cul- .
tivated hills, and the busy people both of the field and sea.
For all that, there was Mr. Rankeillor's house on the south
shore, where I had no doubt wealth awaited me; and here was
I upon the north, clad in poor enough attire of an outlandish
fashion, with three silver shillings left to me of all my fortune,
a price set upon my head, and an outlawed man for my sole
company
“O Alan! ” said I, “to think of it! Over there, there's all
that heart could want waiting me; and the birds go over, and
the boats go over - all that please can go, but just me only! 0
man, but it's a heart-break! »
In Limekilns we entered a small change-house, which we only
knew to be a public by the wand over the door, and bought
some bread and cheese from a good-looking lass that was the
servant. This we carried with us in a bundle, meaning to sit
and eat it in a bush of wood on the sea-shore, that we saw some
third part of a mile in front. As we went, I kept looking across
the water and sighing to myself; and though I took no heed
of it, Alan had fallen into a muse. At last he stopped in the
way.
“Did ye take heed of the lass we bought this of? ” says he,
tapping on the bread and cheese.
“To be sure," said I, "and a bonny lass she was. ”
“Ye thought that ? ” cries he. “Man David, that's good news. ”
(
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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
13949
ye,
“In the name of all that's wonderful, why so ? ” says I. . “What
good can that do ? »
"Well,” said Alan, with one of his droll looks, "I was rather
in hopes it would maybe get us that boat. ”
"If it were the other way about, it would be liker it,” said I.
“That's all that you ken, ye see,” said Alan. “I don't want
the lass to fall in love with ye, I want her to be sorry for
David; to which end, there is no manner of need that she should
take you for a beauty. Let me see” (looking me curiously over).
"I wish ye were a wee thing paler; but apart from that ye'll do
fine for my purpose - ye have a fine, hang-dog, rag-and-tatter,
clappermaclaw kind of a look to ye, as if ye had stolen the coat
from a potato-bogle. Come: right about, and back to the change-
house for that boat of ours. ”
I followed him laughing.
« David Balfour,” said he, "ye're a very funny gentleman by
your way of it, and this is a very funny employ for ye, no doubt.
For all that, if ye have any affection for my neck (to say noth-
ing of your own), ye will perhaps be kind enough to take this
matter responsibly. I am going to do a bit of play-acting, the
bottom ground of which is just exactly as serious as the gallows
for the pair of us. So bear it, if ye please, in mind, and conduct
yourself according. ”
« Well, well,” said I, have it as you will. ”
As we got near the clachan, he made me take his arm and
hang upon it like one almost helpless with weariness; and by
the time he pushed open the change-house door, he seemed to
be half carrying me. The maid appeared surprised (as well she
might be) at our speedy return: but Alan had no words to spare
for her in explanation, helped me to a chair, called for a tass of
brandy with which he fed me in little sips, and then breaking
up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it like a nursery-lass;
the whole with that grave, concerned, affectionate countenance,
that might have imposed upon a judge. It was small wonder if
the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor,
sick, overwrought lad and his most tender comrade. She drew
quite near, and stood leaning with her back on the next table.
“What's like wrong with him ? ” said she at last.
Alan turned upon her, to my great wonder, with a kind of
fury. "Wrong? ” cries he. “He's walked more hundreds of
miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and slept oftener in wet


## p. 13950 (#136) ##########################################

13950
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
(
(
»
heather than dry sheets. Wrong, quo' she! Wrong enough, I
would think! Wrong, indeed! ” and he kept grumbling to him-
self, as he fed me, like a man ill pleased.
«He's young for the like of that,” said the maid.
“Ower young,” said Alan, with his back to her.
«He would be better riding,” says she.
"And where could I get a horse for him ? ” cried Alan, turn-
ing on her with the same appearance of fury. “Would ye have
me steal ? »
I thought this roughness would have sent her off in dudgeon,
as indeed it closed her mouth for the time. But my companion
knew very well what he was doing; and for as simple as he was
in some things of life, had a great fund of roguishness in such
affairs as these.
« Ye neednae tell me,” she said at last-"ye're gentry. ”
“Well,” said Alan, softened a little (I believe against his will)
by this artless comment, and suppose we were ? did ever you
hear that gentrice put money in folks' pockets ? ”
She sighed at this, as if she were herself some disinherited
great lady. "No," says she, “that's true indeed. ”
I was all this while chafing at the part I played, and sitting
tongue-tied between shame and merriment; but somehow at this
I could hold in no longer, and bade Alan let me be, for I was
better already. ' My voice stuck in my throat, for I ever hated
to take part in lies; but my very embarrassment helped on the
plot, for the lass no doubt set down my husky voice to sickness
and fatigue.
“ Has he nae friends? said she in a tearful voice.
“That has he so," cried Alan, “if we could but win to them,
— friends and rich friends, beds to lie in, food to eat, doctors to
see him,—and here he must tramp in the dubs and sleep in the
heather like a beggarman. ”
"And why that? ” says the lass.
My dear,” says Alan, "I cannae very safely say; but I'll tell
ye what I'll do instead,” says he: "I'll whistle ye a bit tune. ”
And with that he leaned pretty far over the table, and in a mere
breath of a whistle, but with a wonderful pretty sentiment, gave
her a few bars of “Charlie is my darling. ”
Wheesht,” says she, and looked over her shoulder to the
>>
door.
“That's it,” said Alan.


## p. 13951 (#137) ##########################################

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
13951
>>
»
.
1
(C
<<
1
"And him so young! ” cried the lass.
"He's old enough to and Alan struck his forefinger on the
back part of his neck, meaning that I was old enough to lose my
head.
“It would be a black shame," she cried, flushing high.
It's what will be, though,” said Alan, «unless we manage
the better. ”
At this the lass turned and ran out of that part of the house,
leaving us alone together; Alan in high good-humor at the fur-
thering of his schemes, and I in bitter dudgeon at being called
a Jacobite and treated like a child.
“Alan,” I cried, “I can stand no more of this. ”
“Ye'll have to sit it then, Davie,” said he. For if ye upset
the pot now, ye may scrape your own life out of the fire, but
Alan Breck is a dead man.
This was so true that I could only groan; and even my groan
served Alan's purpose, for it was overheard by the lass as she
came flying in again with a dish of white puddings and a bottle
of strong ale.
“Poor lamb! ” says she; and had no sooner set the meat
before us, than she touched me on the shoulder with a little
friendly touch, as much as to bid me cheer up. Then she told
us to fall to, and there would be no more to pay; for the inn
was her own, or at least her father's, and he was gone for the
day to Pittencrieff.
We waited for no second bidding, for bread
and cheese is but cold comfort, and the puddings smelt excel-
lently well; and while we sat and ate, she took up that same
place by the next table, looking on, and thinking, and frowning
to herself, and drawing the string of her apron through her hand.
"I'm thinking ye have rather a long tongue,” she said at last
to Alan.
“Ay,” said Alan; “but ye see I ken the folk I speak to. ”
"I would never betray ye,” said she, “if ye mean that. ”
“No,” said he, “ye're not that kind. But I'll tell ye what ye
would do,— ye would help. ”
"I couldnae,” said she, shaking her head. “Na, I couldnae. )
No,” said he, but if ye could ? »
She answered him nothing.
“Look here, my lass,” said Alan: “there are boats in the king-
dom of Fife, for I saw two (no less) upon the beach, as I came
in by your town's end. Now if we could have the use of a boat
»


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13952
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
to pass under cloud of night into Lothian, and some secret,
decent kind of a man to bring that boat back again and keep
his counsel, there would be two souls saved: mine to all likeli-
hood — his to a dead surety. If we lack that boat, we have but
three shillings left in this wide world; and where to go, and
how to do, and what other place there is for us except the
chains of a gibbet - I give you my naked word, I kenna! Shall
we go wanting, lassie? Are ye to lie in your warm bed and
think upon us, when the wind gowls in the chimney and the
rain tirls on the roof? Are ye to eat your meat by the cheeks
of a red fire, and think upon this poor sick lad of mine, biting
his finger-ends on a blae muir for cauld and hunger ? Sick or
sound, he must aye be moving; with the death-grapple at his
throat, he must aye be trailing in the rain on the long roads;
and when he gants his last on a rickle of cauld stanes, there
will be nae friends near him but only me and God. ”
At this appeal, I could see the lass was in great trouble of
mind; being tempted to help us, and yet in some fear she might
be helping malefactors: and so now I determined to step in my-
self, and to allay her scruples with a portion of the truth.
“ Did you ever hear,” said I, “of Mr. Rankeillor of the Queens-
ferry ? ”
Rankeillor the writer ? ” said she. "I daursay that! ”
Well,” said I, “it's to his door that I am bound, so you may
judge by that if I am an ill-doer; and I will tell you more: that
though I am indeed, by a dreadful error, in some peril of my
life, King George has no truer friend in all Scotland than my-
self. ”
Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan's dark-
ened.
That's more than I would ask,” said she. “Mr. Rankeillor
is a kennt man. ” And she bade us finish our meat, get clear of
the clachan as soon as might be, and lie close in the bit wood on
the sea-beach. "And ye can trust me,” says she, “I'll find some
means to put you over. ”
At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with her
upon the bargain, made short work of the puddings, and set
forth again from Limekilns as far as to the wood. It was a small
piece of perhaps a score of elders and hawthorns, and a few
young ashes, not thick enough to veil us from passers-by upon
the road or beach. Here we must lie, however, making the best
(
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»
(
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## p. 13953 (#139) ##########################################

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
13953
of the brave warm weather and the good hopes we now had of
a deliverance, and planning more particularly what remained for
us to do.
We had but one trouble all day: when a strolling piper came
and sat in the same wood with us; a red-nosed, blear-eyed,
drunken dog, with a great bottle of whisky in his pocket, and a
long story of wrongs that had been done him by all sorts of
persons, from the lord president of the court of session who
had denied him justice, down to the baillies of Inverkeithing who
had given him more of it than he desired. It was impossible
but he should conceive some suspicion of two men lying all day
concealed in a thicket and having no business to allege. As
long as he stayed there, he kept us in hot water with prying
questions; and after he was gone, as he was a man not very
likely to hold his tongue, we were in the greater impatience to
be gone ourselves.
The day came to an end with the same brightness; the night
fell quiet and clear; lights came out in houses and hamlets, and
then, one after another, began to be put out: but it was past
eleven, and we were long since strangely tortured with anxieties,
before we heard the grinding of oars upon the rowing-pins. At
that, we looked out and saw the lass herself coming rowing to
us in a boat. She had trusted no one with our affairs — not even
her sweetheart, if she had one; but as soon as her father was
asleep, had left the house by a window, stolen a neighbor's boat,
and come to our assistance single-handed.
I was abashed how to find expression for my thanks: but she
was no less abashed at the thought of hearing them; begged
us to lose no time and to hold our peace, saying (very properly)
that the heart of our matter was in haste and silence: and so,
what with one thing and another, she had set us on the Lothian
shore not far from Carriden, had shaken hands with us, and was
out again at sea and rowing for Limekilns, before there was one
word said either of her service or our gratitude.
Even after she was gone we had nothing to say, as indeed
nothing was enough for such a kindness. Only Alan stood a
great while upon the shore shaking his head.
“It is a very fine lass,” he said at last. «David, it is a very
fine lass. ” And a matter of an hour later, as we were lying in
a den on the sea-shore and I had been already dozing, he broke
out again in commendations of her character. For my part I
XXIV—873


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13954
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
could say nothing; she was so simple a creature that my heart
smote me both with remorse and fear: remorse, because we had
traded upon her ignorance; and fear, lest we should have any-
way involved her in the dangers of our situation.
>
A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES
From "Travels with a Donkey. By permission of the authorized publishers,
Charles Scribner's Sons
F*
se-
>>
ROM Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set
out to scale a portion of the Lozère. An ill-marked stony
drove road guided me forward; and I met nearly half a
dozen bullock carts descending from the woods, each laden with
a whole pine-tree for the winter's firing. At the top of the
woods, which do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I
struck leftward by a path among the pines, until I hit on a dell
of green turf, where a streamlet made a little spout over some
stones to serve me for a water-tap. “In a more sacred or
questered bower. nor nymph, nor faunus, haunted. The
trees were not old, but they grew thickly round the glade: there
was no outlook, except northeastward upon distant hill-tops, or
straight upward to the sky; and the encampment felt secure and
private like a room. By the time I had made my arrangements
and fed Modestine, the day was already beginning to decline. I
buckled myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty
meal; and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over
my eyes and fell asleep.
Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in
the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and
perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of
Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked
between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to
the man who sleeps a-field. All night long he can hear Nature
breathing deeply and freely: even as she takes her rest, she turns
and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who
dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the
sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet.
It is then that the cock first crows,—not this time to announce
the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of


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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
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night. Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on
dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and
houseless men who have lain down with the fowls, open their
dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night.
At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature,
are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life ? Do
the stars rain down an influence, or do we share some thrill of
mother earth below our resting bodies ? Even shepherds and old
country-folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana, have not
a guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection.
Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes place;
and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it is a pleas-
ant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber only, like the
luxurious Montaigne, “that we may the better and more sensibly
relish it. ” We have a moment to look upon the stars.
And
there is a special pleasure for some minds in the reflection that
we share the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neigh-
borhood; that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilization,
and are become, for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a
sheep of Nature's flock.
When that hour came to me among the pines, I awakened
thirsty. My tin was standing by me half full of water.
I emp-
tied it at a draught; and feeling broad awake after this internal
cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. The stars were
clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery
vapor stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-
points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the
pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at
the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at
the sward: but there was not another sound, save the indescrib-
able quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smok-
ing and studying the color of the sky, as we call the void of
space, from where it showed a reddish gray behind the pines to
where it showed a glossy blue-black between the stars. As if to
be more like a peddler, I wear a silver ring. This I could see
faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each
whiff the inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a
second the highest light in the landscape.
A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream of
air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in
my great chamber the air was being renewed all night long. I


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13956
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
thought with horror of the inn at Chasserades and the congre-
gated nightcaps; with horror of the nocturnal prowesses of clerks
and students, of hot theatres and pass-keys and close rooms.
have not often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor
felt more independent of material aids. The outer world, from
which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habit-
able place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was
laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open
house. I thought I had rediscovered one of those truths which
are revealed to savages and hid from political economists; at the
least, I had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even
while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange
lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, ,
silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a
fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly un-
derstood, is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors with
the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and
free.
As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise stole
towards me through the pines. I thought, at first, it was the
crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs at some very distant
farm; but steadily and gradually it took articulate shape in
my ears, until I became aware that a passenger was going by
upon the high-road in the valley, and singing loudly as he went.
There was more of good-will than grace in his performance:
but he trolled with ample lungs; and the sound of his voice took
hold upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens.
I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities: some
of them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on the bagpipes.
I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage spring up suddenly
after hours of stillness, and pass, for some minutes, within the
range of my hearing as I lay abed. There is a romance about
all who are abroad in the black hours, and with something of a
thrill we try to guess their business. But here the romance was
double: first, this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, who
sent up his voice in music through the night; and then I, on the
other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the
pine-woods between four and five thousand feet towards the
stars.
When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many of the
stars had disappeared; only the stronger companions of the night


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still burned visibly overhead: and away towards the east I saw a
faint haze of light upon the horizon, such as had been the Milky
Way when I was last awake. Day was at hand. I lit my lan-
tern, and by its glow-worm light put on my boots and gaiters;
then I broke up some bread for Modestine, filled my can at the
water-tap, and lit my spirit-lamp to boil myself some chocolate.
The blue darkness lay long in the glade where I had so sweetly
slumbered; but soon there was a broad streak of orange melting
into gold along the mountain-tops of Vivarais. A solemn glee
possessed my mind at this gradual and lovely coming in of day.
I heard the runnel with delight; I looked round me for some-
thing beautiful and unexpected: but the still black pine-trees, the
hollow glade, the munching ass, remained unchanged in figure.
Nothing had altered but the light; and that indeed shed over
all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, and moved me to a
strange exhilaration.
I drank my water chocolate, which was hot if it was not rich,
and strolled here and there, and up and down about the glade.
While I was thus delaying, a gush of steady wind, as long as a
heavy sigh, poured direct out of the quarter of the morning. It
was cold, and set me sneezing. The trees near at hand tossed
their black plumes in its passage; and I could see the thin dis-
tant spires of pine along the edge of the hill rock slightly to
and fro against the golden east. Ten minutes after, the sun.
light spread at a gallop along the hillside, scattering shadows and
sparkles, and the day had come completely.
I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle a steep ascent that
lay before me; but I had something on my mind. It was only a
fancy; yet a fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been
most hospitably received and punctually served in my green
caravanserai.
The room
was airy, the water excellent, and the
dawn had called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tap-
estries or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I
commanded from the windows; but I felt I was in some one's
debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it pleased me, in
a half-laughing way, to leave pieces of money on the turf as
I went along, until I had left enough for my night's lodging.
I trust they did not fall to some rich and churlish drover.


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13958
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
From New Arabian Nights. By permission of the authorized publishers,
Charles Scribner's Sons
" I ,
T was late in November 1456. And snow fell over Paris with
rigorous, relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a
sally and scattered it in Aying vortices; sometimes there was
a lull, and flake after flake descended out of the black night air,
silent, circuitous, interminable. To poor people, looking up under
moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder where it all came from.
Master Francis Villon had propounded an alternative that after-
noon, at a tavern window: was it only pagan Jupiter plucking
geese upon Olympus ? or were the holy angels moulting? He
was only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as the question
somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to con-
clude. A silly old priest from Montargis, who was among the
company, treated the young rascal to a bottle of wine in honor
of the jest and grimaces with which it was accompanied, and
swore on his own white beard that he had been just such another
irreverent dog when he was Villon's age.
The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and
the Aakes were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was
sheeted up. An army might have marched from end to end and
not a footfall given the alarm. If there were any belated birds
in heaven, they saw the island like a large white patch, and the
bridges like slim white spars, on the black ground of the river.
High up overhead the snow settled among the tracery of the
cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue
wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The
gargoyles had been transformed into great false noses, drooping
towards the point. The crockets were like upright pillows swollen
on one side. In the intervals of the wind, there was a dull sound
of dripping about the precincts of the church.
The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of the snow.
All the graves were decently covered; tall white housetops stood
around in grave array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed,
be-nightcapped like their domiciles; there was no light in all the
neighborhood but a little peep from a lamp that hung swinging
in the church choir, and tossed the shadows to and fro in time
to its oscillations. The clock was hard on ten when the patrol


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​went by with halberds and a lantern, beating their hands; and
they saw nothing suspicious about the cemetery of St. John.
Yet there was a small house, backed up against the cemetery
wall, which was still awake, and awake to evil purpose, in that
snoring district. There was not much to betray it from with-
out: only a stream of warm vapor from the chimney-top, a patch
where the snow melted on the roof, and a few half-obliterated
footprints at the door. But within, behind the shuttered windows,
Master Francis Villon the poet, and some of the thievish crew
with whom he consorted, were keeping the night alive and pass-
ing round the bottle.
A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy
glow from the arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom
Nicolas, the Picardy monk, with his skirts picked up and his fat
legs bared to the comfortable warmth. His dilated shadow cut
the room in half; and the firelight only escaped on either side of
his broad person, and in a little pool between his outspread feet.
His face had the beery, bruised appearance of a continual drink-
er's: it was covered with a network of congested veins, purple
in ordinary circumstances, but now pale violet; for even with his
back to the fire the cold pinched him on the other side. His
cowl had half fallen back, and made a strange excrescence on
either side of his bull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut
the room in half with the shadow of his portly frame.
On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled together
over a scrap of parchment; Villon making a ballade which he
was to call the Ballade of Roast Fish,' and Tabary spluttering
admiration at his shoulder. The poet was a rag of a man,
dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks.
He carried his four-and-twenty years with feverish animation.
Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had puckered
his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It
was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands
were small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; and
they were continually flickering in front of him in violent and
expressive pantomine. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admir-
ing imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips:
he had become a thief, just as he might have become the most
decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives
of human geese and human donkeys.


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139бо
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
((
>
»
At the monk's other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete
played a game of chance. About the first there clung some flavor
of good birth and training, as about a fallen angel: something
long, lithe, and courtly in the person; something aquiline and
darkling in the face. Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather:
he had done a good stroke of knavery that afternoon in the
Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night he had been gaining from
Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald head shone
rosily in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach
shook with silent chucklings as he swept in his gains.
"Doubles or quits ? ” said Thevenin.
Montigny nodded grimly.
"Some may prefer to dine in state,” wrote Villon, "On bread
and cheese on silver plate. Or, or — help me out, Guido! ”
Tabary giggled.
“ Or parsley on a golden dish,” scribbled the poet.
The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow before
it, and sometimes raised its voice in a victorious whoop, and made
sepulchral grumblings in the chimney. The cold was growing
sharper as the night went on. Villon, protruding his lips, imitated
the gust with something between a whistle and a groan.
It was
an eerie, uncomfortable talent of the poet's, much detested by the
Picardy monk.
“Can't you hear it rattle in the gibbet? ” said Villon. “They
are all dancing the Devil's jig on nothing, up there.
dance, my gallants, you'll be none the warmer! Whew! what a
gust! Down went somebody just now! A medlar the fewer on
the three-legged medlar-tree! --I say, Dom Nicolas, it'll be cold
,
to-night on the St. Denis Road? ” he asked.
Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to choke
upon his Adam's apple. Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris
gibbet, stood hard by the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry
touched him on the raw. As for Tabary, he laughed immoder-
ately over the medlars; he had never heard anything more light-
hearted, and he held his sides and crowed. Villon fetched him a
fillip on the nose, which turned his mirth into an attack of cough-
ing
«Oh, stop that row,” said Villon, “and think of rhymes to
«
You may
'fish. ) »
« Doubles or quits,” said Montigny doggedly.
1


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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
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With all my heart," quoth Thevenin.
“Is there any more in that bottle ? ” asked the monk.
“Open another,” said Villon. “How do you ever hope to fill
that big hogshead, your body, with little things like bottles ?