"
Little store of bodily vigour had Robert Lewis; but with his
buoyant, enthusiastic, inquisitive spirit he accomplished a strong
man's task, "weaving his garlands when his mood was gay, mocking his
sorrows with a solemn jest." This treasured only son, worshipped by
his doting parents and his nurse, Alison Cunningham, who was a
second mother to him, reports himself to have been a good child. He
also says he had a covenanting childhood. In the mid-Victorian era,
a stricter discipline reigned over nurseries in Scotland's capital
than now. "The serviceable pause" in the week's work on Sunday was
not without real benefits, for the children of these times, if
sermons were long and the Sabbath devoid of toys, learned to sit
still and to endure, and very useful lessons they were to R. L. S.
and others. Despite being an extra model little soul," eminently
religious," he says, he was much like other children. His nurse
tells how, during one of the many feverish, wakeful nights he
suffered from, when he lay wearying for the carts coming (a sign to
him of morning), she read to him for hours at his request the Bible.
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