"CUMMY."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15826, 26 July 1913, Page 14

"CUMMY."

R. L. S. AND "KINNICUM."

By Constant Reader.

The death at Edinburgh at the age of 92 of Robert Louis Stevenson's faithful nurse, Alison Cunningham, recalls the dedication "From Her Boy," which prefaces "A Child's Garden of Verses." 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.storybooks 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 o£ my infant life— From, the 6ick child, now well and old, Take,'nurse, tho 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, Li the bright •fireside nursery clime May hear it in as kind a voice As made my childhood days rojoico! "When Stevenson was 1.8 months-old,"-writes Graham Balfour, " Alison Gunningham— 'Cummie' to him for the rest of his days,—came to.liim and watched over his childhood with the most intense devotion. She refused, it is said, an offer of marriage that she might not leave her charge, and she remained with the family long after the care,of him had passed out of women's hands, never taking another place, as indeed she had no need to do. Her true reward has been a monument of gratitude, for which a parallel is hardto find. At 20 (an age when young men are not -generally very tender to' such memories) Louis wrote the paper on 'Nurses,' printed in 'Juvenilia. Fifteen years later the.dedication of the 'Child's Garden' was 'To Alison Cunningham, From Her Boy,' and this was but the preface to one of the happiest sets of verses in one of the happiest of books. Alison Hastie, the lass at Limekilns, who put David Balfour and Alan Breck across the Forth, was, he told her, an ancestress of hers, just as David was a kinsman, of his own:- Of,all his works he sent.her. copies; throughout his' life he wrote letters to her; when he had a house he had her to stay with him, and even proposed to brinp- her out on a visit to Samoa."

Here'is an extract from "the first, which has been preserved of many letters, to the admirable nurse whose care during his ailing ; childhood had done so much to preserve Stevenson's life and awaken his love of tales and poetry." The letter would seem to belong to the year 1871: —

My Dear Cummy,— ... do not suppose that I shall ever forget those long, bitter nights when I coughed and coughed and was so unhappy, and you were so patient and loving with a poor sick child. Indeed, Cummy, I wish i

might become a man worth talking of it it were only that you should not have thrown awa'y your pains. . . . You have been for a great deal in my life; you have made much that there \& in me, just as surely as if. you had. conceived me; and there are sons who are more ungrateful to their own mothers than I am to you." Another letter, dated from Nice in February, 1883, tells of tie beginning of "The Child's Garden otjjjerses " :— My Dear Cummylf- . . • The real reason why you have been more in mv mind than usual is- because of some

little verses that I have been writing that I mean to make a book- of; and the real reason of this letter (although

I ought to have written to you anyway) is that I have just 6een that the book in question must be dedicated to Alison Cunningham, the only person who will reallv understand it. . . . This little book, which is all about my childhood, should indeed be to no other person, but you, who did so much to make that childhood happy. Among other letters to "Cummy," all of absorbing interest, there are- one from Bournemouth dated January 1, 1886, addressed "My dear Kinnicum," which is the Lothian vernacular pronunciation of Cunningham; and another from Vailima dated October 8, 1894, which commences "So I hear you are ailing. Think shame to yourself." So you think there is nothing better to be done than that? And be sure we. can-all do much ourselves to. decide whether we are to be ill or well! like a man on the gymnastic bars." It is a noteworthy circumstance that Alison Cunnigham should have died in the very year when all over Scotland has just been celebrated the centenary of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, one of her favourite authors. Indeed, the "Something of the Shorter Catechist" that Henley so shrewdly detected in his.' friend, Stevenson was 'due in large measure to the influence of "Cummy.'' Graham Balfour writes in this connection :—

If Louis spent) as he tells us " A ICovenanting childhood," it was to Cummie that this was due. Besides the Bible and the Shorter Catechism, which lie had also from his mother, Cummie filled him with a love of her own favourite authors, M'Cheyne and others, Presbyterians of the straitest doctrine. It was she in all probability who first introduced him to. "The Cameraman Dream." That poem, he afterwards told Mr Gosse, made the most indelible impression on his fancy, and was the earliest piece of literature which awakened in him the sentiment of romantic Scottish liistory. From her, too, he first heard some of the writings of the Covenanters, Wodrow, Peden; and others, who directly influenced his choice of subjects and according to his own testimony had a great share in the formation of his style. A special favourite also wassail old copy of "A Cloud of Witnesses" which had belonged to his nurse's grandmother.

In matters of conduct Cummie was for no half measures. Cards were the Devil's books. Mr and Sirs Stevenson played whist, decorous family whist—the mother had the keenest zest for all games—and Louis could remember praying fervently with his nurse that it mi'dit not be visited on them to their perdition. The novel and the playhouse were alike anathema to her; and this would seem no very likely opening for the career of one who was to be a novelist and wrote plays as well. For her pupil entered fully int-o the spirit of her ordinances, and insisted on a most rigorous observance of her code. " I was brought up on Cassell's Family Paper," he wrote, "but the lady who was kind enough to read the tales aloud to me was subject to sharp attacks of conscience. She took the Family Paper .on confidence, the talcs it contained bem" family tales, not novels. But every now 'and then something would oo3ii/ to alarm her finer sense; she would then express a well-grounded fear that the current Miction was . 'going to turn out a regular novel,' and the Family Paper with my pious approval would be dropped. Yet neither she nor I was wholly stoical; and when Saturday came round we would study the windows of the stationer and try to fish out of subsequent woodcuts and their legends tho further adventures of our favourites."

Tn spite of her restrictions Cummio wis full of life and merriment, She danced and sang to her boy, and read

to him most dramatically. She herself tails how the last time she ever saw him'he said'toher "before.'a room of people"':'" It's you that'gave me a, passion for the drama, Cummie." "Me, Master Lou," I said,,"l never put foot inside a playhouse in my life." ''Ay, woman," said he, "but it was the grand dramatic way ye had of reciting the hvmn's."