Robert Ballantyne

Robert M. Ballantyne wrote 90 books of fiction. Walter Scott never read one. Ballantyne was born on April 24, 1825, and Scott died seven years later. But Scott certainly would have known of the birth to his publisher James Ballantyne.

Ballantyne's work is of the adventure kind, and his "The Coral Island" is said to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson, who read the work while in his teens, to travel the Pacific. From that work:

'Roving has always been, and still is, my ruling passion, the joy of my heart, the very sunshine of my existence. In childhood, in boyhood, and in man's estate, I have been a rover; not a mere rambler among the woody glens and upon the hill-tops of my own native land, but an enthusiastic rover throughout the length and breadth of the wide wide world.

It was a wild, black night of howling storm, the night in which I was born on the foaming bosom of the broad Atlantic Ocean. My father was a sea-captain; my grandfather was a sea-captain; my great-grandfather had been a marine. Nobody could tell positively what occupation his father had followed; but my dear mother used to assert that he had been a midshipman, whose grandfather, on the mother's side, had been an admiral in the royal navy. At any rate we knew that, as far back as our family could be traced, it had been intimately connected with the great watery waste. Indeed this was the case on both sides of the house; for my mother always went to sea with my father on his long voyages, and so spent the greater part of her life upon the water.

Thus it was, I suppose, that I came to inherit a roving disposition. Soon after I was born, my father, being old, retired from a seafaring life, purchased a small cottage in a fishing village on the west coast of England, and settled down to spend the evening of his life on the shores of that sea which had for so many years been his home. It was not long after this that I began to show the roving spirit that dwelt within me. For some time past my infant legs had been gaining strength, so that I came to be dissatisfied with rubbing the skin off my chubby knees by walking on them, and made many attempts to stand up and walk like a man; all of which attempts, however, resulted in my sitting down violently and in sudden surprise. One day I took advantage of my dear mother's absence to make another effort; and, to my joy, I actually succeeded in reaching the doorstep, over which I tumbled into a pool of muddy water that lay before my father's cottage door. Ah, how vividly I remember the horror of my poor mother when she found me sweltering in the mud amongst a group of cackling ducks, and the tenderness with which she stripped off my dripping clothes and washed my dirty little body! From this time forth my rambles became more frequent, and, as I grew older, more distant, until at last I had wandered far and near on the shore and in the woods around our humble dwelling, and did not rest content until my father bound me apprentice to a coasting vessel, and let me go to sea. '

Robert Louis Stevenson

November 13 is the anniversary of Robert Louis Stevenson's birth, which occurred in 1850.  Stevenson, of course, is well known as an author.  Robert declared his interest in becoming a writer fairly early in life, bucking the Stevenson family trend of building lighthouses.  Robert's father Thomas employed his engineering skills in designing more than 30 of Scotland's lighthouses.  Robert's cousin David designed Bass Rock lighthouse, which figured in Robert's novel Catronia.  Lighthouse building became a Stevenson forte with Robert's grandfather (also Robert), who designed, among others, Bell Rock lighthouse, which Walter Scott visited with Robert Stevenson on his Northern lights tour (1814).  The connection between Scott and the Stevensons clearly influenced Robert Louis' interests.  One other connection in terms of novels, is that his "Kidnapped" was in part inspired by his reading of Scott's "Rob Roy".

Robert Louis Stevenson visited the Northern lights as well, on summer inspection trips with his family.  Like Walter Scott, these travels were a source of writing material for Stevenson, who was a travel writer, as well as novelist.  Stevenson's travels took him not only to Europe, but to America, in pursuit of a love interest (wife Fanny Osbourne), and ultimately to Samoa, where he died.  Stevenson was sickly most of his life, suffering from tuberculosis, and dying at the young age of 44.

Red Fox Hunted

A murder occurred on May 14, 1752, that inspired the pens of both Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.  The victim, Colin Campbell, was known as the Red Fox.  The murder became famous as the Appin Murder.  It took place in Appin, the region of the forfeited estates of the Stewart clan.

Campbell served as factor for the Stewart estates.  In this position, he had recently evicted the Stewarts of Appin; a Jacobite clan.  Clan leaders naturally came under suspicion, with James Stewart arrested, tried, and convicted.  James protested his innocence, but was hanged at Ballachulish.  His life ended famously with his recitation of Psalm 35 from the Bible, dubbed "The Psalm of James of the Glens" in his memory.

The Appin murder appears in Stevenson's "Kidnapped".  Stevenson is said to have received this inspiration from reading Walter Scott's description of the incident in his introduction to "Rob Roy":

"A remarkable Highland story must be here briefly alluded to. Mr. Campbell of Glenure, who had been named factor for Government on the forfeited estates of Stewart of Ardshiel, was shot dead by an assassin as he passed through the wood of Lettermore, after crossing the ferry of Ballachulish. A gentleman, named James Stewart, a natural brother of Ardshiel, the forfeited person, was tried as being accessory to the murder, and condemned and executed uponvery doubtful evidence; the heaviest part of which only amounted to the accused person having assisted a nephew of his own, called Allan Breck Stewart, with money to escape after the deed was done. Not satisfied with this vengeance, which was obtained in a manner little to the honour of the dispensation of justice at the time, the friends of the deceased Glenure were equally desirous to obtain possession of the person of Allan Breck Stewart, supposed to be the actual homicide. James Mhor Drummond was secretly applied to to trepan Stewart to the sea-coast, and bring him over to Britain, to almost certain death. Drummond MacGregor had kindred connections with the slain Glenure; and, besides, the MacGregors and Campbells had been friends of late, while the former clan and the Stewarts had, as we have seen, been recently at feud; lastly, Robert Oig was now in custody at Edinburgh, and James was desirous to do some service by which his brother might be saved. The joint force of these motives may, in James's estimation of right and wrong, have been some vindication for engaging in such an enterprise, although, as must be necessarily supposed, it could only be executed by treachery of a gross description. MacGregor stipulated for a license to return to England, promising to bring Allan Breck thither along with him. But the intended victim was put upon his guard by two countrymen, who suspected James's intentions towards him. He escaped from his kidnapper, after, as MacGregor alleged, robbing his portmanteau of some clothes and four snuff-boxes. Such a charge, it may be observed, could scarce have been made unless the parties had been living on a footing of intimacy, and had access to each other's baggage..."

Saint Baldred (or Balfred)

Saint Baldred was a monk of the 7th century.  Baldred was a Bishop of Scotland, who succeeded Saint Kentigern in Glasgow.  At some point, Balfred bedcame a hermit, establishing a cell/chapel on The Bass Rock.  Baldred died on March 6, 608.

The Bass, situated in the Firth of Forth, was later used as a prison for religious and political prisoners, especially by King James I in the 15th century.  The fort used for this purpose was demolished in 1701.  In 1706, Hew Dalrymple, brother of the Master of Stair, acquired The Bass, and it remains in the family today.

Bass Rock Lighthouse (photo by Don Carter) was built by David Stevenson, grandson of Robert Stevenson, who led Walter Scott on a voyage to the Northern Lights in 1814.  David Stevenson engineered 26 lighthouses; three with his uncle Thomas Stevenson, and twenty-three with his brother Charles.  Bass Rock lighthouse was completed in 1903, well after Scott's lifetime.  The light figures in another Scottish author's novel,  Robert Louis Stevenson's (cousin of David) "Catronia".

Scott makes a melancholy reference to Bass Rock in his journal, on the death of his "Lady Scott":

"May_ 16.(1826) --She died at nine in the morning, after being
very ill for two days,--easy at last.
I arrived here late last night. Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics,
which returned on my arrival. Her broken accents were like those of a
child, the language, as well as the tones, broken, but in the most
gentle voice of submission. "Poor mamma--never return again--'gone for
ever--a better place." Then, when she came to herself, she spoke with
sense, freedom, and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. It
would have been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger--what was it
then to the father and the husband? For myself, I scarce know how I
feel, sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, sometimes as weak as the wave
that breaks on it."