The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [66]
While Alan began his long climb to professional success, his brothers were catching up. Bob, by now crammed full of all the correct spelling he could ever need, was sent first to further classes in architectural drawing and French, before being posted down to London to improve his manners with Mr Pettingal. He, like Alan, had received a formal letter from Robert demanding to know what he should choose as a profession, but Bob wavered, aware that engineering was not what he wanted to do. By the time he returned from Twickenham, his dancing and his handwriting tweaked into line, he had made up his mind. He announced to Robert that he wanted to become a physician. He had been helped in this by Jane’s newest suitor, a neighbouring doctor named Adam Warden who had encouraged Bob’s interest. Robert, though disappointed, could not complain too hard since he already had one son marked down for engineering, and Bob was at least choosing a practical profession. He could do no more than give Bob his blessing and enrol him in further classes at university.
David was more encouraging to Robert. He, unlike Alan and Bob, showed no faltering in his enthusiasm for the Stevenson trade. He did moderately well at school without showing any sign of having picked up Bob’s waywardness or Alan’s poetic intelligence. He was also physically tough, and by his mid teens had become a sturdy boy without much originality of thought but with all the self-discipline needed for engineering. By 1830, having reached the age of sixteen and the end of his school career, David was taken along with Tom (now twelve) for the first time on Robert’s annual voyage of inspection. The tour included all the Scottish lights as well as a brief detour to Wales and the Isle of Man. During the journey, David kept a journal, which is remarkable both for its length, 13,000 words, and its dullness. He had picked up many of his father’s mannerisms, including Robert’s fascination for architectural detail and his penchant for collecting statistics, but had not yet learned Robert’s capacity to give them life and meaning. Most of this and his subsequent diary is written in the strained manner of a young gentleman on his first grand tour, desperate to brandish his cleverness and terrified to show enthusiasm. For the lack of anything else to say, he kept a faithful record of the prayers said on ship, the sermons from the local ministers and the local population statistics.
David also wrote a meticulous account of the Bell Rock, describing precisely the different rooms, the building materials and the method of storing water. ‘The sixth floor forms the lightroom,’ he noted, ‘where the reflecting apparatus is ranged upon a perpendicular axis and made to revolve by a train of machinery driven by a heavy leaden weight. The reflectors are ranged in 4 faces 5 upon each face. They have beautifully polished faces of silver formed to the parabolic curve, each being illuminated by an argand burner.’ While up in Bara, he brought the same care to his record of the islanders. ‘They are very ignorant and cannot speak a word of English,’ he wrote disdainfully. ‘None of them can read a word in their own language, and – wonderful to say in this islet of the British Dominions – there is not among the natives a single leaf of a printed book, they are all Roman Catholics, and the priest pays them a visit once a year. Most of their houses consist of holes dug in the earth…We went into one of them where we found several women and a number of children squatting upon the ground round a fire of peats burning on the floor.’ David, like most of his Lowland compatriots, found Highlanders distasteful. Robert’s respect for the Gaels had yet to filter through to him.
Once back in Edinburgh, David responded instantly to Robert’s formal letter. Yes, he agreed, he did want to become an engineer. Indeed, he had never considered any other profession, and would start his training as soon as Robert saw fit. He too was therefore despatched to Edinburgh University to take the usual diet