Kidnapped. Роберт Льюис Стивенсон

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      Kidnapped

      by Robert Louis Stevenson

      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

      ©2014 Wilder Publications

      All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for brief quotations for review purposes only.

      Wilder Publications, Inc.

      PO Box 632

      Radford VA 24091-0632

      ISBN 13: 978-1-63384-416-2

      Table of Contents

       Preface to the Biographical Edition

       Dedication

       Chapter I: I Set off upon My Journey to the House of Shaws

       Chapter II: I Come to My Journey's End

       Chapter III: I Make Acquaintance of My Uncle

       Chapter IV: I Run a Great Danger in the House of Shaws

       Chapter V: I Go to the Queen's Ferry

       Chapter VI: What Befell at the Queen's Ferry

       Chapter VII: I Go to Sea in the Brig "Covenant" of Dysart

       Chapter VIII: The Round-house

       Chapter IX: The Man with the Belt of Gold

       Chapter X: The Siege of the Round-house

       Chapter XI: The Captain Knuckles under

       Chapter XII: I Hear of the "Red Fox"

       Chapter XIII: The Loss of the Brig

       Chapter XIV: The Islet

       Chapter XV: The Lad with the Silver Button: Through the Isle of Mull

       Chapter XVI: The Lad with the Silver Button: Across Morven

       Chapter XVII: The Death of the Red Fox

       Chapter XVIII: I Talk with Alan in the Wood of Lettermore

       Chapter XIX: The House of Fear

       Chapter XX: The Flight in the Heather: the Rocks

       Chapter XXI: The Flight in the Heather: the Heugh of Corrynakiegh

       Chapter XXII: The Flight in the Heather: the Moor

       Chapter XXIII: Cluny's Cage

       Chapter XXIV: The Flight in the Heather: the Quarrel

       Chapter XXV: In Balquhidder

       Chapter XXVI: End of the Flight: We Pass the Forth

       Chapter XXVII: I Come to Mr. Rankeillor

       Chapter XXVIII: I Go in Quest of My Inheritance

       Chapter XXIX: I Come into My Kingdom

       Chapter XXX: Good-bye

      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 Stewartin 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