[Gutenberg 280] • Records of a Family of Engineers

Excerpt from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vol. 16: Records of a Family of Engineers; Additional Memories and Portraits; Later Essays; Lay Morals; Prayers Written for Family Use at Vailima

And Martin, elder in Dalkeith, eternally disgraced the name by signing witness in a witch trial, 1661. These are two of our black sheep.1 Under the Restoration, one Stevenson was a bailie in Edinburgh, and another the lessee of the Canonmills. There were at the same period two physicians of the name in Edinburgh, one of whom, Dr. Archibald, appears to have been a famous man in his day and generation. The Court had continual need of him; it was he who reported, for instance, on the state of Rumbold and he was for some time in the enjoyment of a pension of a thousand pounds Scots (about eighty pounds sterling) at a time when five hundred pounds is described as an opulent future. I do not know if I should be glad or sorry that he failed to keep favour but on 6th January 1682 (rather a cheerless New Year's present) his pension was expunged.2 There need be no doubt, at least, of my exultation at the fact that he was knighted and recorded arms. Not quite so genteel, but still in public life, Hugh was under-clerk to the Privy Council, and liked being so extremely. I gather this from his con duct in September 1681, when, with all the lords and their servants, he took the woful and soul-destroying Test, swearing it word by word upon his knees. And, behold I it was in vain, for Hugh was turned out of his small post in Sir Archibald and Hugh were both plainly inclined to be trimmers but there was one witness of the name of Stevenson who held high the banner of the Covenant - John, land-labourer,4 in the parish of Daily, in Carrick, that eminently pious man. He seems to have been a poor sickly soul, and shows himself disabled with scrofula, and prostrate and groaning aloud with fever; but the enthusiasm of the martyr burned high within him.

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