Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, page 415
Macaire. My dear sir, my friend and I, I regret to say, have an appointment in Lyons, or I could spend my life in this society. Charge your glasses: one hour to madness and to joy! What is to-morrow? the enemy of to-day. Wine? the bath of life. One moment: I find I have forgotten my watch. (He makes for the door.)
Brigadier. Halt!
Macaire. Sir, what is this jest?
Brigadier. Sentry at the door. Your passports.
Macaire. My good man, with all the pleasure in life. (Gives papers. The Brigadier puts on spectacles, and examines them.)
Bertrand (rising, and passing round to Macaire’s other side). It’s life and death: they must soon find it.
Macaire (aside). Don’t I know? My heart’s like fire in my body.
Brigadier. Your name is?
Macaire. It is; one’s name is not unknown.
Brigadier. Justice exacts your name.
Macaire. Henri-Frédéric de Latour de Main de la Tonnerre de Brest.
Brigadier. Your profession?
Macaire. Gentleman.
Brigadier. No, but what is your trade?
Macaire. I am an analytical chymist.
Brigadier. Justice is inscrutable. Your papers are in order. (To Bertrand.) Now, sir, and yours?
Bertrand. I feel kind of ill.
Macaire. Bertrand, this gentleman addresses you. He is not one of us; in other scenes, in the gay and giddy world of fashion, one is his superior. But to-day he represents the majesty of law; and as a citizen it is one’s pride to do him honour.
Brigadier. Those are my sentiments.
Bertrand. I beg your pardon, I — (Gives papers.)
Brigadier. Your name?
Bertrand. Napoleon.
Brigadier. What? In your passport it is written Bertrand.
Bertrand. It’s this way: I was born Bertrand, and then I took the name of Napoleon, and I mostly always call myself either Napoleon or Bertrand.
Brigadier. The truth is always best. Your profession?
Bertrand. I am an orphan.
Brigadier. What the devil! (To Macaire.) Is your friend an idiot?
Macaire. Pardon me, he is a poet.
Brigadier. Poetry is a great hindrance to the ends of justice. Well, take your papers.
Macaire. Then we may go?
SCENE IV
To these, Charles, who is seen on the gallery, going to the door of Number Thirteen. Afterwards all the characters but the Notary and the Marquis
Brigadier. One glass more. (Bertrand touches Macaire, and points to Charles, who enters Number Thirteen).
Macaire. No more, no more, no more.
Brigadier (rising and taking Macaire by the arm). I stipulate!
Macaire. Engagement in Turin!
Brigadier. Turin?
Macaire. Lyons, Lyons!
Bertrand. For God’s sake.
Brigadier. Well, good-bye!
Macaire. Good-bye, good —
Charles (from within). Murder! Help! (Appearing.) Help here! The Marquis is murdered.
Brigadier. Stand to the door. A man up there. (A Gendarme hurries up staircase into Number Thirteen, Charles following him. Enter on both sides of gallery the remaining characters of the piece, except the Notary and the Marquis.)
Macaire (aside). Bitten, by God!
Bertrand (aside). Lost!
Brigadier (to Dumont). John Paul Dumont, I arrest you.
Dumont. Do your duty, officer. I can answer for myself and my own people.
Brigadier. Yes, but these strangers?
Dumont. They are strangers to me.
Macaire. I am an honest man: I stand upon my rights: search me; or search this person, of whom I know too little. (Smiting his brow.) By heaven, I see it all! This morning — (To Bertrand.) How, sir, did you dare to flaunt your booty in my very face? (To Brigadier.) He showed me notes; he was up ere day; search him, and you’ll find. There stands the murderer.
Bertrand. O, Macaire! (He is seized and searched and the notes are found.)
Brigadier. There is blood upon the notes. Handcuffs. (Macaire edging towards the door.)
Bertrand. Macaire, you may as well take the bundle. (Macaire is stopped by sentry, and comes front, R.)
Charles (re-appearing). Stop, I know the truth. (He comes down.) Brigadier, my father is not dead. He is not even dangerously hurt. He has spoken. There is the would-be assassin.
Macaire. Hell! (He darts across to the staircase, and turns on the second step, flashing out the knife.) Back, hounds! (He springs up the stair, and confronts them from the top.) Fools, I am Robert Macaire! (As Macaire turns to flee, he is met by the gendarme coming out of Number Thirteen; he stands an instant checked, is shot from the stage, and falls headlong backward down the stair. Bertrand, with a cry, breaks from the gendarmes, kneels at his side, and raises his head.)
Bertrand. Macaire, Macaire, forgive me. I didn’t blab; you know I didn’t blab.
Macaire. Sold again, old boy. Sold for the last time; at least, the last time this side death. Death — what is death? (He dies.)
CURTAIN
The Poetry Collections
Skerryvore, the Stevenson’s house at Bournemouth, where they lived during the mid-1880’s at the height of the author’s success. His friend and fellow-author Henry James was a frequent visitor.
A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES
Illustrated by Maria L. Kirk
Stevenson’s most famous collection of poems was first published in 1885, initially under the title Penny Whistles, and has not been out of print since. The poems have become classics, admired for their ability to recapture accurately the child’s perspective on the world as a combination of reality and make-believe. The collection presents some of Stevenson’s most famous poems, such as ‘The Land of Counterpane’ and ‘The Lamplighter’.
The book is dedicated to Alison Cunningham, or ‘Cummy’, the author’s childhood nurse and nanny, who greatly influenced the young Stevenson’s own conception of the world around him. The ‘Envoys’ section also contains poems written to Stevenson’s childhood playfellows. In fact more than simply a book for children, the whole work is something of a tribute to childhood and to the author’s memory of what it was like to be a child.
Title page of the 1916 illustrated edition
Illustration from a 1905 children’s cookbook, using one of the most famous quotations from the collection
CONTENTS
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
BED IN SUMMER
A THOUGHT
AT THE SEASIDE
YOUNG NIGHT THOUGHT
WHOLE DUTY OF CHILDREN
RAIN
PIRATE STORY
FOREIGN LANDS
WINDY NIGHTS
TRAVEL
SINGING
LOOKING FORWARD
A GOOD PLAY
WHERE GO THE BOATS?
AUNTIE’S SKIRTS
THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE
THE LAND OF NOD
MY SHADOW
SYSTEM
A GOOD BOY
ESCAPE AT BEDTIME
MARCHING SONG
THE COW
HAPPY THOUGHT
THE WIND
KEEPSAKE MILL
GOOD AND BAD CHILDREN
FOREIGN CHILDREN
THE SUN’S TRAVELS
THE LAMPLIGHTER
MY BED IS A BOAT
THE MOON
THE SWING
TIME TO RISE
LOOKING-GLASS RIVER
FAIRY BREAD
FROM A RAILWAY CARRIAGE
WINTER-TIME
THE HAYLOFT
FAREWELL TO THE FARM
NORTH-WEST PASSAGE
GOOD NIGHT
SHADOW MARCH
IN PORT
THE CHILD ALONE
THE UNSEEN PLAYMATE
MY SHIP AND I
MY KINGDOM
PICTURE-BOOKS IN WINTER
MY TREASURES
BLOCK CITY
THE LAND OF STORY-BOOKS
ARMIES IN THE FIRE
THE LITTLE LAND
GARDEN DAYS
NIGHT AND DAY
NEST EGGS
THE FLOWERS
SUMMER SUN
THE DUMB SOLDIER
AUTUMN FIRES
THE GARDENER
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS
ENVOYS
TO WILLIE AND HENRIETTA
TO MY MOTHER
TO AUNTIE
TO MINNIE
TO MY NAME-CHILD
TO ANY READER
Statue of Stevenson as a child, outside Colinton Parish Church, Scotland
Stevenson’s beloved nurse, Alison Cunningham (known affectionately as ‘Cummy’) to whom the book is dedicated. ‘Cummy’ was a huge formative influence on the young Stevenson, her strong religious views inspiring and terrifying him in equal measure.
The Gardener
O how much wiser you would be
To play at Indian wars with me!
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
FROM HER BOY
For the long nights you lay awake
And watched for my unworthy sake:
For your most comfortable hand
That led me through the uneven land:
For all the story-books you read:
For all the pains you comforted:
For all you pitied, all you bore,
In sad and happy days of yore: —
My second Mother, my first Wife,
The angel of my infant life —
From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!
And grant it, Heaven, that all who read
May find as dear a nurse at need,
And every child who lists my rhyme,
In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,
May hear it in as kind a voice
As made my childish days rejoice!
R. L. S.
BED IN SUMMER
IN winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
A THOUGHT
IT is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace
In every Christian kind of place.
AT THE SEASIDE
WHEN I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup,
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.
YOUNG NIGHT THOUGHT
ALL night long and every night,
When my mamma puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day, before my eye.
Armies and emperors and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.
So fine a show was never seen,
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.
At first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside them close I keep
Until we reach the town of Sleep.
WHOLE DUTY OF CHILDREN
A CHILD should always say what’s true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
At least as far as he is able.
RAIN
THE rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.
Pirate Story
Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea
PIRATE STORY
THREE of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea —
Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be,
The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.
FOREIGN LANDS
UP into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.
I saw the next door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.
I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sky’s blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people tramping in to town.
If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships,
To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.
WINDY NIGHTS
WHENEVER the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
TRAVEL
I SHOULD like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow; —
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats; —
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
And the rich goods from near and far
Hang for sale in the bazaar;
Where the Great Wall round China goes,
And on one side the desert blows,
And with bell and voice and drum,
Cities on the other hum; —
Where are forests, hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the negro hunters’ huts; —
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes; —
Where in jungles, near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in a palanquin; —
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted city stands,
All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,
Not a foot in street or house,
Not a stir of child or mouse,
And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.
There I’ll come when I’m a man
With a camel caravan;
Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes, fights and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.
SINGING
OF speckled eggs the birdie sings
And nests among the trees;
The sailor sings of ropes and things
In ships upon the seas.
The children sing in far Japan,
The children sing in Spain;
The organ with the organ man
Is singing in the rain.
LOOKING FORWARD
WHEN I am grown to man’s estate
I shall be very proud and great.
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys.
A GOOD PLAY
WE built a ship upon the stairs
All made of the back-bedroom chairs,
And filled it full of sofa pillows
To go a-sailing on the billows.
We took a saw and several nails,
And water in the nursery pails;
And Tom said, ‘Let us also take
An apple and a slice of cake;’ —
Which was enough for Tom and me
To go a-sailing on till tea.
We sailed along for days and days,
And had the very best of plays;
But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,
So there was no one left but me.
WHERE GO THE BOATS?
DARK brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating —
