Incidentally!...

Like many houses in Auld Reekie, 17 Heriot Row is built on a steep slant of ground, so that the rear of the house is a storey or more higher than the face.  We explored the kitchens, laundries, store-rooms, and other “offices” with care, imagining that little “Smoutie” may have run here and there in search of tid-bits from the cook.  Visions of that childhood, fifty years before, were almost as real as our own.  We seemed to hear the young treble of his voice.  That house was the home of the Stevensons for thirty years (1857-1887)—­surely even the thirty years that have gone by since Thomas Stevenson died cannot have laid all those dear ghosts we conjured up!

We thanked our guide and took leave of him.  If the firm of Guild and Shepherd should ever see this, surely they will forgive our innocent deception, for the honour of R.L.S.  I wonder if any one has yet put a tablet on the house?  If not, Mifflin and I will do so, some day.

In the evenings we used to wander up to Heriot Row in the long Northern dusk, to sit on the front steps of number 17 waiting for Leerie to come and light the famous lamp which still stands on the pavement in front of the dining-room windows: 

    For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
    And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
    And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
    O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!

But no longer does Leerie “with lantern and with ladder come posting up the street.”  Nowadays he carries a long pole bearing a flame cunningly sheltered in a brass socket.  But the Leerie of 1911 ("Leerie-light-the-lamps” is a generic nickname for all lamplighters in Scotland) was a pleasant fellow even if ladderless, and we used to have a cigar ready for him when he reached 17.  We told him of R.L.S., of whom he had vaguely heard, and explained the sanctity of that particular lamp.  He in turn talked freely of his craft, and learning that we were Americans he told us of his two sisters “in Pennsylvania, at 21 Thorn Street.”  He seemed to think Pennsylvania a town, but finally we learned that the Misses Leerie lived in Sewickley where they were doing well, and sending back money to the “kiddies.”  Good Leerie, I wonder do you still light the lamps on Heriot Row, or have you too seen redder beacons on Flanders fields?

One evening I remember we fell into discussion whether the lamp-post was still the same one that R.L.S. had known.  We were down on hands and knees on the pavement, examining the base of the pillar by match-light in search of possible dates.  A very seedy and disreputable looking man passed, evidently regarding us with apprehension as detectives.  Mifflin, never at a loss, remarked loudly “No, I see no footprints here,” and as the ragged one passed hastily on with head twisted over his shoulder, we followed him.  At the corner of Howe Street he broke into an uneasy shuffle, and Mifflin turned a great laugh into a Scotland Yard sneeze.