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 PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

DEDICATION

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