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