Kidnapped

R >> Robert Louis Stevenson >> Kidnapped

KIDNAPPED
BEING
MEMOIRS OF THE ADVENTURES OF
DAVID BALFOUR
IN THE YEAR 1751



HOW HE WAS KIDNAPPED AND CAST AWAY; HIS SUFFERINGS IN
A DESERT ISLE; HIS JOURNEY IN THE WILD HIGHLANDS;
HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH ALAN BRECK STEWART
AND OTHER NOTORIOUS HIGHLAND JACOBITES;
WITH ALL THAT HE SUFFERED AT THE
HANDS OF HIS UNCLE, EBENEZER
BALFOUR OF SHAWS, FALSELY
SO CALLED

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF AND NOW SET FORTH BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WITH A PREFACE BY MRS. STEVENSON



PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

While my husband and Mr. Henley were engaged in writing plays in
Bournemouth they made a number of titles, hoping to use them in the
future. Dramatic composition was not what my husband preferred, but
the torrent of Mr. Henley's enthusiasm swept him off his feet. However,
after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously impaired
by his endeavours to keep up with Mr. Henley, play writing was abandoned
forever, and my husband returned to his legitimate vocation. Having
added one of the titles, The Hanging Judge, to the list of projected
plays, now thrown aside, and emboldened by my husband's offer to give me
any help needed, I concluded to try and write it myself.

As I wanted a trial scene in the Old Bailey, I chose the period of 1700
for my purpose; but being shamefully ignorant of my subject, and my
husband confessing to little more knowledge than I possessed, a London
bookseller was commissioned to send us everything he could procure
bearing on Old Bailey trials. A great package came in response to our
order, and very soon we were both absorbed, not so much in the trials
as in following the brilliant career of a Mr. Garrow, who appeared as
counsel in many of the cases. We sent for more books, and yet more,
still intent on Mr. Garrow, whose subtle cross-examination of witnesses
and masterly, if sometimes startling, methods of arriving at the truth
seemed more thrilling to us than any novel.

Occasionally other trials than those of the Old Bailey would be included
in the package of books we received from London; among these my husband
found and read with avidity:--

THE
TRIAL
OF
JAMES STEWART
in Aucharn in Duror of Appin
FOR THE
Murder of COLIN CAMPBELL of Glenure, Efq;
Factor for His Majefty on the forfeited
Estate of Ardfhiel.

My husband was always interested in this period of his country's
history, and had already the intention of writing a story that should
turn on the Appin murder. The tale was to be of a boy, David Balfour,
supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should travel in
Scotland as though it were a foreign country, meeting with various
adventures and misadventures by the way. From the trial of James Stewart
my husband gleaned much valuable material for his novel, the most
important being the character of Alan Breck. Aside from having described
him as "smallish in stature," my husband seems to have taken Alan
Breck's personal appearance, even to his clothing, from the book.

A letter from James Stewart to Mr. John Macfarlane, introduced as
evidence in the trial, says: "There is one Alan Stewart, a distant
friend of the late Ardshiel's, who is in the French service, and came
over in March last, as he said to some, in order to settle at home; to
others, that he was to go soon back; and was, as I hear, the day that
the murder was committed, seen not far from the place where it happened,
and is not now to be seen; by which it is believed he was the actor. He
is a desperate foolish fellow; and if he is guilty, came to the country
for that very purpose. He is a tall, pock-pitted lad, very black hair,
and wore a blue coat and metal buttons, an old red vest, and breeches of
the same colour." A second witness testified to having seen him wearing
"a blue coat with silver buttons, a red waistcoat, black shag breeches,
tartan hose, and a feathered hat, with a big coat, dun coloured," a
costume referred to by one of the counsel as "French cloathes which were
remarkable."

There are many incidents given in the trial that point to Alan's fiery
spirit and Highland quickness to take offence. One witness "declared
also That the said Alan Breck threatened that he would challenge
Ballieveolan and his sons to fight because of his removing the
declarant last year from Glenduror." On another page: "Duncan Campbell,
change-keeper at Annat, aged thirty-five years, married, witness cited,
sworn, purged and examined ut supra, depones, That, in the month of
April last, the deponent met with Alan Breck Stewart, with whom he was
not acquainted, and John Stewart, in Auchnacoan, in the house of the
walk miller of Auchofragan, and went on with them to the house: Alan
Breck Stewart said, that he hated all the name of Campbell; and the
deponent said, he had no reason for doing so: But Alan said, he had very
good reason for it: that thereafter they left that house; and, after
drinking a dram at another house, came to the deponent's house, where
they went in, and drunk some drams, and Alan Breck renewed the former
Conversation; and the deponent, making the same answer, Alan said, that,
if the deponent had any respect for his friends, he would tell them,
that if they offered to turn out the possessors of Ardshiel's estate, he
would make black cocks of them, before they entered into possession by
which the deponent understood shooting them, it being a common phrase in
the country."

Some time after the publication of Kidnapped we stopped for a short
while in the Appin country, where we were surprised and interested to
discover that the feeling concerning the murder of Glenure (the "Red
Fox," also called "Colin Roy") was almost as keen as though the tragedy
had taken place the day before. For several years my husband received
letters of expostulation or commendation from members of the Campbell
and Stewart clans. I have in my possession a paper, yellow with age,
that was sent soon after the novel appeared, containing "The Pedigree of
the Family of Appine," wherein it is said that "Alan 3rd Baron of Appine
was not killed at Flowdoun, tho there, but lived to a great old age. He
married Cameron Daughter to Ewen Cameron of Lochiel." Following this
is a paragraph stating that "John Stewart 1st of Ardsheall of his
descendants Alan Breck had better be omitted. Duncan Baan Stewart in
Achindarroch his father was a Bastard."

One day, while my husband was busily at work, I sat beside him reading
an old cookery book called The Compleat Housewife: or Accomplish'd
Gentlewoman's Companion. In the midst of receipts for "Rabbits, and
Chickens mumbled, Pickled Samphire, Skirret Pye, Baked Tansy," and
other forgotten delicacies, there were directions for the preparation
of several lotions for the preservation of beauty. One of these was so
charming that I interrupted my husband to read it aloud. "Just what
I wanted!" he exclaimed; and the receipt for the "Lily of the Valley
Water" was instantly incorporated into Kidnapped.

F. V. DE G. S.




DEDICATION

MY DEAR CHARLES BAXTER:


If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions
than I should care to answer: as for instance how the Appin murder has
come to fall in the year 1751, how the Torran rocks have crept so near
to Earraid, or why the printed trial is silent as to all that touches
David Balfour. These are nuts beyond my ability to crack. But if you
tried me on the point of Alan's guilt or innocence, I think I could
defend the reading of the text. To this day you will find the tradition
of Appin clear in Alan's favour. If you inquire, you may even hear that
the descendants of "the other man" who fired the shot are in the country
to this day. But that other man's name, inquire as you please, you shall
not hear; for the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the
congenial exercise of keeping it I might go on for long to justify one
point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once
how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture
for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school-room
when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near; and honest
Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day has in this new avatar
no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention
from his Ovid, carry him awhile into the Highlands and the last century,
and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams.

As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask you to like this tale.
But perhaps when he is older, your son will; he may then be pleased to
find his father's name on the fly-leaf; and in the meanwhile it pleases
me to set it there, in memory of many days that were happy and some (now
perhaps as pleasant to remember) that were sad. If it is strange for
me to look back from a distance both in time and space on these bygone
adventures of our youth, it must be stranger for you who tread the same
streets--who may to-morrow open the door of the old Speculative,
where we begin to rank with Scott and Robert Emmet and the beloved and
inglorious Macbean--or may pass the corner of the close where that great
society, the L. J. R., held its meetings and drank its beer, sitting in
the seats of Burns and his companions. I think I see you, moving there
by plain daylight, beholding with your natural eyes those places that
have now become for your companion a part of the scenery of dreams. How,
in the intervals of present business, the past must echo in your memory!
Let it not echo often without some kind thoughts of your friend,

R.L.S. SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH.



CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I I SET OFF UPON MY JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS
II I COME TO MY JOURNEY'S END
III I MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE
IV I RUN A GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS
V I GO TO THE QUEEN'S FERRY
VI WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN'S FERRY
VII I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG "COVENANT" OF DYSART
VIII THE ROUND-HOUSE
IX THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD
X THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE
XI THE CAPTAIN KNUCKLES UNDER
XII I HEAR OF THE "RED FOX"
XIII THE LOSS OF THE BRIG
XIV THE ISLET
XV THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL
XVI THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: ACROSS MORVEN
XVII THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX
XVIIII TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE
XIX THE HOUSE OF FEAR
XX THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE ROCKS
XXI THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH
XXII THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE MOOR
XXIII CLUNY'S CAGE
XXIV THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE QUARREL IN BALQUHIDDER
XXVI END OF THE FLIGHT: WE PASS THE FORTH
XXVII I COME TO MR. RANKEILLOR
XXVIII I GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE
XXIX I COME INTO MY KINGDOM
XXX GOOD-BYE



CHAPTER I

I SET OFF UPON MY JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS

I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in
the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the
last time out of the door of my father's house. The sun began to shine
upon the summit of the hills as I went down the road; and by the time
I had come as far as the manse, the blackbirds were whistling in the
garden lilacs, and the mist that hung around the valley in the time of
the dawn was beginning to arise and die away.

Mr. Campbell, the minister of Essendean, was waiting for me by the
garden gate, good man! He asked me if I had breakfasted; and hearing
that I lacked for nothing, he took my hand in both of his and clapped it
kindly under his arm.

"Well, Davie, lad," said he, "I will go with you as far as the ford, to
set you on the way." And we began to walk forward in silence.

"Are ye sorry to leave Essendean?" said he, after awhile.

"Why, sir," said I, "if I knew where I was going, or what was likely
to become of me, I would tell you candidly. Essendean is a good place
indeed, and I have been very happy there; but then I have never been
anywhere else. My father and mother, since they are both dead, I shall
be no nearer to in Essendean than in the Kingdom of Hungary, and, to
speak truth, if I thought I had a chance to better myself where I was
going I would go with a good will."

"Ay?" said Mr. Campbell. "Very well, Davie. Then it behoves me to tell
your fortune; or so far as I may. When your mother was gone, and your
father (the worthy, Christian man) began to sicken for his end, he gave
me in charge a certain letter, which he said was your inheritance. 'So
soon,' says he, 'as I am gone, and the house is redd up and the gear
disposed of' (all which, Davie, hath been done), 'give my boy this
letter into his hand, and start him off to the house of Shaws, not far
from Cramond. That is the place I came from,' he said, 'and it's where
it befits that my boy should return. He is a steady lad,' your father
said, 'and a canny goer; and I doubt not he will come safe, and be well
lived where he goes.'"

"The house of Shaws!" I cried. "What had my poor father to do with the
house of Shaws?"

"Nay," said Mr. Campbell, "who can tell that for a surety? But the name
of that family, Davie, boy, is the name you bear--Balfours of Shaws:
an ancient, honest, reputable house, peradventure in these latter
days decayed. Your father, too, was a man of learning as befitted his
position; no man more plausibly conducted school; nor had he the manner
or the speech of a common dominie; but (as ye will yourself remember)
I took aye a pleasure to have him to the manse to meet the gentry; and
those of my own house, Campbell of Kilrennet, Campbell of Dunswire,
Campbell of Minch, and others, all well-kenned gentlemen, had pleasure
in his society. Lastly, to put all the elements of this affair before
you, here is the testamentary letter itself, superscrived by the own
hand of our departed brother."

He gave me the letter, which was addressed in these words: "To the hands
of Ebenezer Balfour, Esquire, of Shaws, in his house of Shaws, these
will be delivered by my son, David Balfour." My heart was beating hard
at this great prospect now suddenly opening before a lad of seventeen
years of age, the son of a poor country dominie in the Forest of
Ettrick.

"Mr. Campbell," I stammered, "and if you were in my shoes, would you
go?"

"Of a surety," said the minister, "that would I, and without pause.
A pretty lad like you should get to Cramond (which is near in by
Edinburgh) in two days of walk. If the worst came to the worst, and
your high relations (as I cannot but suppose them to be somewhat of your
blood) should put you to the door, ye can but walk the two days back
again and risp at the manse door. But I would rather hope that ye shall
be well received, as your poor father forecast for you, and for anything
that I ken come to be a great man in time. And here, Davie, laddie," he
resumed, "it lies near upon my conscience to improve this parting, and
set you on the right guard against the dangers of the world."

Here he cast about for a comfortable seat, lighted on a big boulder
under a birch by the trackside, sate down upon it with a very long,
serious upper lip, and the sun now shining in upon us between two peaks,
put his pocket-handkerchief over his cocked hat to shelter him. There,
then, with uplifted forefinger, he first put me on my guard against a
considerable number of heresies, to which I had no temptation, and urged
upon me to be instant in my prayers and reading of the Bible. That done,
he drew a picture of the great house that I was bound to, and how I
should conduct myself with its inhabitants.

"Be soople, Davie, in things immaterial," said he. "Bear ye this in
mind, that, though gentle born, ye have had a country rearing. Dinnae
shame us, Davie, dinnae shame us! In yon great, muckle house, with all
these domestics, upper and under, show yourself as nice, as circumspect,
as quick at the conception, and as slow of speech as any. As for the
laird--remember he's the laird; I say no more: honour to whom honour.
It's a pleasure to obey a laird; or should be, to the young."

"Well, sir," said I, "it may be; and I'll promise you I'll try to make
it so."

"Why, very well said," replied Mr. Campbell, heartily. "And now to come
to the material, or (to make a quibble) to the immaterial. I have here
a little packet which contains four things." He tugged it, as he spoke,
and with some great difficulty, from the skirt pocket of his coat. "Of
these four things, the first is your legal due: the little pickle money
for your father's books and plenishing, which I have bought (as I have
explained from the first) in the design of re-selling at a profit to
the incoming dominie. The other three are gifties that Mrs. Campbell and
myself would be blithe of your acceptance. The first, which is round,
will likely please ye best at the first off-go; but, O Davie, laddie,
it's but a drop of water in the sea; it'll help you but a step, and
vanish like the morning. The second, which is flat and square and
written upon, will stand by you through life, like a good staff for the
road, and a good pillow to your head in sickness. And as for the last,
which is cubical, that'll see you, it's my prayerful wish, into a better
land."

With that he got upon his feet, took off his hat, and prayed a little
while aloud, and in affecting terms, for a young man setting out into
the world; then suddenly took me in his arms and embraced me very hard;
then held me at arm's length, looking at me with his face all working
with sorrow; and then whipped about, and crying good-bye to me, set off
backward by the way that we had come at a sort of jogging run. It might
have been laughable to another; but I was in no mind to laugh. I watched
him as long as he was in sight; and he never stopped hurrying, nor once
looked back. Then it came in upon my mind that this was all his sorrow
at my departure; and my conscience smote me hard and fast, because I,
for my part, was overjoyed to get away out of that quiet country-side,
and go to a great, busy house, among rich and respected gentlefolk of my
own name and blood.

"Davie, Davie," I thought, "was ever seen such black ingratitude? Can
you forget old favours and old friends at the mere whistle of a name?
Fie, fie; think shame."

And I sat down on the boulder the good man had just left, and opened the
parcel to see the nature of my gifts. That which he had called cubical,
I had never had much doubt of; sure enough it was a little Bible, to
carry in a plaid-neuk. That which he had called round, I found to be a
shilling piece; and the third, which was to help me so wonderfully both
in health and sickness all the days of my life, was a little piece of
coarse yellow paper, written upon thus in red ink:


"TO MAKE LILLY OF THE VALLEY WATER.--Take the flowers of lilly of the
valley and distil them in sack, and drink a spooneful or two as there is
occasion. It restores speech to those that have the dumb palsey. It is
good against the Gout; it comforts the heart and strengthens the memory;
and the flowers, put into a Glasse, close stopt, and set into ane hill
of ants for a month, then take it out, and you will find a liquor which
comes from the flowers, which keep in a vial; it is good, ill or well,
and whether man or woman."



And then, in the minister's own hand, was added:

"Likewise for sprains, rub it in; and for the cholic, a great spooneful
in the hour."


To be sure, I laughed over this; but it was rather tremulous laughter;
and I was glad to get my bundle on my staff's end and set out over the
ford and up the hill upon the farther side; till, just as I came on the
green drove-road running wide through the heather, I took my last look
of Kirk Essendean, the trees about the manse, and the big rowans in the
kirkyard where my father and my mother lay.




CHAPTER II

I COME TO MY JOURNEY'S END

On the forenoon of the second day, coming to the top of a hill, I saw
all the country fall away before me down to the sea; and in the midst
of this descent, on a long ridge, the city of Edinburgh smoking like
a kiln. There was a flag upon the castle, and ships moving or lying
anchored in the firth; both of which, for as far away as they were, I
could distinguish clearly; and both brought my country heart into my
mouth.

Presently after, I came by a house where a shepherd lived, and got a
rough direction for the neighbourhood of Cramond; and so, from one to
another, worked my way to the westward of the capital by Colinton, till
I came out upon the Glasgow road. And there, to my great pleasure and
wonder, I beheld a regiment marching to the fifes, every foot in time;
an old red-faced general on a grey horse at the one end, and at the
other the company of Grenadiers, with their Pope's-hats. The pride of
life seemed to mount into my brain at the sight of the red coats and the
hearing of that merry music.

A little farther on, and I was told I was in Cramond parish, and began
to substitute in my inquiries the name of the house of Shaws. It was a
word that seemed to surprise those of whom I sought my way. At first I
thought the plainness of my appearance, in my country habit, and that
all dusty from the road, consorted ill with the greatness of the place
to which I was bound. But after two, or maybe three, had given me the
same look and the same answer, I began to take it in my head there was
something strange about the Shaws itself.

The better to set this fear at rest, I changed the form of my inquiries;
and spying an honest fellow coming along a lane on the shaft of his
cart, I asked him if he had ever heard tell of a house they called the
house of Shaws.

He stopped his cart and looked at me, like the others.

"Ay" said he. "What for?"

"It's a great house?" I asked.

"Doubtless," says he. "The house is a big, muckle house."

"Ay," said I, "but the folk that are in it?"

"Folk?" cried he. "Are ye daft? There's nae folk there--to call folk."

"What?" say I; "not Mr. Ebenezer?"

"Ou, ay" says the man; "there's the laird, to be sure, if it's him
you're wanting. What'll like be your business, mannie?"

"I was led to think that I would get a situation," I said, looking as
modest as I could.

"What?" cries the carter, in so sharp a note that his very horse
started; and then, "Well, mannie," he added, "it's nane of my affairs;
but ye seem a decent-spoken lad; and if ye'll take a word from me, ye'll
keep clear of the Shaws."

The next person I came across was a dapper little man in a beautiful
white wig, whom I saw to be a barber on his rounds; and knowing well
that barbers were great gossips, I asked him plainly what sort of a man
was Mr. Balfour of the Shaws.

"Hoot, hoot, hoot," said the barber, "nae kind of a man, nae kind of a
man at all;" and began to ask me very shrewdly what my business was;
but I was more than a match for him at that, and he went on to his next
customer no wiser than he came.

I cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my illusions. The more
indistinct the accusations were, the less I liked them, for they left
the wider field to fancy. What kind of a great house was this, that all
the parish should start and stare to be asked the way to it? or what
sort of a gentleman, that his ill-fame should be thus current on the
wayside? If an hour's walking would have brought me back to Essendean,
had left my adventure then and there, and returned to Mr. Campbell's.
But when I had come so far a way already, mere shame would not suffer me
to desist till I had put the matter to the touch of proof; I was bound,
out of mere self-respect, to carry it through; and little as I liked
the sound of what I heard, and slow as I began to travel, I still kept
asking my way and still kept advancing.

It was drawing on to sundown when I met a stout, dark, sour-looking
woman coming trudging down a hill; and she, when I had put my usual
question, turned sharp about, accompanied me back to the summit she had
just left, and pointed to a great bulk of building standing very bare
upon a green in the bottom of the next valley. The country was pleasant
round about, running in low hills, pleasantly watered and wooded, and
the crops, to my eyes, wonderfully good; but the house itself appeared
to be a kind of ruin; no road led up to it; no smoke arose from any of
the chimneys; nor was there any semblance of a garden. My heart sank.
"That!" I cried.

The woman's face lit up with a malignant anger. "That is the house of
Shaws!" she cried. "Blood built it; blood stopped the building of it;
blood shall bring it down. See here!" she cried again--"I spit upon
the ground, and crack my thumb at it! Black be its fall! If ye see the
laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him this makes the twelve hunner and
nineteen time that Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on him
and his house, byre and stable, man, guest, and master, wife, miss, or
bairn--black, black be their fall!"