iron-bound pillar on the destructive Bell Rock, and set life-saving
lights there, was very intent on his professional work, yet he had
his ideal, and romantic, and adventurous side. In the delightful
sketch which his famous grandson gave of him, does he not tell of
the joy Robert Stevenson had on the annual voyage in the LIGHTHOUSE
YACHT - how it was looked forward to, yearned for, and how, when he
had Walter Scott on board, his fund of story and reminiscence all
through the tour never failed - how Scott drew upon it in THE
PIRATE and the notes to THE PIRATE, and with what pride Robert
Stevenson preserved the lines Scott wrote in the lighthouse album
at the Bell Rock on that occasion:


"PHAROS LOQUITUR

"Far in the bosom of the deep
O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep,
A ruddy gem of changeful light
Bound on the dusky brow of night.
The seaman bids my lustre hail,
And scorns to strike his timorous sail."


And how in 1850 the old man, drawing nigh unto death, was with the
utmost difficulty dissuaded from going the voyage once more, and
was found furtively in his room packing his portmanteau in spite of
the protests of all his family, and would have gone but for the
utter weakness of death.

His father was also a splendid engineer; was full of invention and