Some years ago while vacationing on the West Coast of Scotland, I picked up a book entitled,The Killing Of The Red Fox: An Investigation into the Appin Murder by Seamus Carney. It is the true story of a murder, or assassination if you will, in the year 1752 in the Western Highlands of Scotland. It just so happens that this was in an area not far from where we were staying for a few weeks.
Carney’s book is an intriguing tale, especially brought to life for me as I found myself in some of the very places spoken of in the narrative. I discovered the story had influenced Robert Louis Stevenson as he wrote Kidnapped. So now I had to read Kidnapped and I became an RLS fan. It was much like when David Balfour, who providentially in Kidnapped found himself at the doors of the British Linen bank.
After reading Kidnapped and also Stevenson’s Scotland, I thought I should read a good RLS biography.
Stevenson’s Scotland by the way is an excellent read. It is a compilation of Stevenson’s essays about his hometown of Edinburgh. It was interesting for me as one from a really small town in the Dust Bowl Country of Oklahoma, who has both wandered and wondered the streets of Edinburgh over the years, to see how Stevenson so perfectly describes “The Auld Reekie.”
Having lunched at Deacon Brodies and set my watch to the One O’Clock Gun fired from the Castle, I felt I was walking the streets with him.
But back to a biography. I chose one by Frank McLynn and as I read in the opening pages, he seemed to be a reasonable enough fellow. I knew of the Stevenson family and the lighthouses and it seemed like Frank would enlighten me as to how a young man born into a famous, established engineering family became a successful writer celebrating his native land.
Then as I read in McLynn’s first chapter I discovered I was a religious maniac! I decided I should probably read about RLS by a different less prejudiced author.
McLynn’s personal prejudices are very much on display as he speaks of Robert’s childhood.
“During these critical formative years stability and continuity were provided by the family nurse Alison Cunningham, the ‘Cummy’ of Stevenson legend. Born in Fife on 15 May 1822, the daughter of a fisherman, and a Calvinist of the severest stripe, Alison Cunningham entered the Stevensons’ service when RLS was eighteen months old, having already served as nurse in the Free Church Manse at Pilrig to one of the boy’s Balfour relations.”
And continuing….
“But Cummy was also a religious maniac, fanatical…who stuffed the child’s head with the more unacceptable excesses of Calvinism and the Old Testament. When he was still an impressionable infant she read the entire Bible to him three or four times. She also read from the Shorter Catechism, a curious Scots doggerel metrical version of the Psalms, from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, from Pilgrim’s Progress and from The Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne – a pietistic biography of a young Scottish clergyman who died at 28, which was then to be found in many Scottish homes and was said later to have comforted Gordon at Khartoum.”
The more I read, the more concerned I became. At least three of the “fanatical” writings McClynn mentioned can be found on my bookshelves.
And to make matters worse, I have other books by and about that “young Scottish clergyman” McCheyne who had died so young. Several times my family and I have attended McCheyne’s church, St. Peter’s Free Church, just off Dundee’s Perth Road. One of our grandsons has “McCheyne” as a middle name.
And when we are visiting our daughter and her family who reside in Scotland, we attend St, Andrew’s Free Church of Scotland in St, Andrews. We have also attended Free Churches in places such as Oban and Inverness.
Attending these churches, we came to know many of the people. I cannot recall one I could remotely describe as a maniac. Caring is the descriptive word that comes to my mind.
So I’m leaving McLynn at around page 17 in search of a less biased author. Also I need to read up on “Gordon at Khartoum.”
Gave a great day….
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