Kidnapped
‘Do you want to be killed?’ said I.
He sprang to his feet, and looked a question at me
as clear as if he had spoken.
‘Oh!’ cried I, ‘they’re all murderers here; it’s a ship
full of them! They’ve murdered a boy already. Now it’s
you.’
‘Ay, ay,’ said he; ‘but they haven’t got me yet.’ And
then looking at me curiously, ‘Will ye stand with me?’
‘That will I!’ said I.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
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 West 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.
INTRODUCED BY
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
PUFFIN
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First published 1886
Published in Puffin Books 1946
Reissued in this edition 2009
Introduction copyright © Alexander McCall Smith, 2009
Endnotes copyright © Penguin Books, 2009
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-193127-2
INTRODUCED BY
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
Imagine going to stay with a relative – an uncle – whom you don’t know. Imagine finding that this uncle sends you off to bed up a dark staircase that ends in a sheer drop. Not a nice way to treat a nephew? The sort of thing a gangster would do? Yes, but this wonderful book, Kidnapped, is not about gangsters – it is about a young man called David Balfour who lived in Scotland over two hundred years ago. It is one of the most exciting books that there is – one of the very greatest adventure stories.
The book was written by a man called Robert Louis Stevenson, a member of a family that had become famous for doing something really rather unusual: designing lighthouses for the rugged Scottish coast. Stevenson did not go into the family profession; he was fascinated by stories, and even as a boy he would spend hours writing them. His father wanted him to do something different, but Stevenson was determined to be a writer. That is fortunate for all of us, who can now enjoy the books that he wrote and that are, in spite of all the years that have passed, still fresh and exciting.
He had a big burden in his life – ill health – but in spite of not feeling very well for much of the time, Stevenson still managed to travel all over the world, soaking up impressions of people and places. All the time he was writing the books that were to prove so popular. Treasure Island was one of these, and so too was Kidnapped.
His travels eventually took him and his wife to the South Seas, to Samoa, where he was to spend the last years of his life. He still wrote while he was there, but he also became a great friend of the local people, who came to him for help and advice. But his health never improved very much, and he died at the age of forty-four. I always think of how much we lose when somebody like that dies too young. Think of Mozart, the great composer – if only he had lived longer we would have had so much more of his beautiful music. And I think that, too, of Robert Louis Stevenson.
But what he left us is very good, and Kidnapped is one of the best. Although it is fiction, it is set in the real Scotland and it takes place against the background of real historical events. Scottish history is full of blood and battles. At the time that Stevenson is writing about, the Highlands of Scotland were still in turmoil after a failed rebellion against the government. Scotland had joined up politically with England in 1707, but many people felt unhappy about this. In particular, there were people who felt that the crown – shared with England since the previous century – had been given to the wrong person, and that the Stuart branch of the royal family should have the throne. In 1745 there was a major rebellion when the man known as Bonnie Prince Charlie had tried to snatch the country for the Stuarts. He had come to Scotland to assert his claim and, although he met with some success, he was eventually defeated. After that, people who had supported the Stuart cause (they were known as Jacobites) were hounded. Some of them were executed or exiled; some lost all of their land.
David Balfour, the hero of this book, is only sixteen. After he is kidnapped by his uncle and put on a ship to be sold into slavery, he escapes on the wild Scottish coast, accompanied by a man called Alan Breck. Alan Breck is a Jacobite, a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and now he is an outlaw. Their adventures together on the run form the main part of the book. And there are many adventures, including some that are very uncomfortable – such as being accused of the murder of a man called the Red Fox, a bully and tyrant.
There are many tales of adventure in the world’s literature, but Kidnapped really stands out. Why is this such a good book? Well, Stevenson is a very fine writer, and he manages to give us the impression that we are there, right in the place where things are happening. And he also gives us a very good idea of what the characters are thinking and feeling. When David Balfour is involved in a fight, we know exactly what it feels like to be caught up in the chaos of violence – Stevenson makes sure of that. One of the techniques he uses is to write the book in the first person: the whole story is told by David Balfour. This makes it seem as if we are sitting there at a storytelling session, listening to somebody describing something that has actually happened to him. That often makes a book more interesting.
But it is not only the events that happen here that the reader will find fascinating. This book takes place in some of the most impressive countryside in Europe. The west of Scotland is a land of mountains and glens (valleys). There are waterfalls and torrential rivers. There are bare moors and great sweeps of emptiness. It is a magnificent setting for an adventure story, and one which Stevenson, as a Scot, writes about with great passion. There are bagpipes in this book and you can almost hear them as you read!
I loved St
evenson when I was a boy and I still love him. Get to know this book now and you will find a friend for life.
Contents
1 I set off upon my Journey to the House of Shaws
2 I come to my Journey’s End
3 I make Acquaintance of my Uncle
4 I run a great Danger in the House of Shaws
5 I go to the Queen’s Ferry
6 What befell at the Queen’s Ferry
7 I go to sea in the Brig Covenant of Dysart
8 The Round-House
9 The Man with the Belt of Gold
10 The Siege of the Round-House
11 The Captain knuckles under
12 I hear of the Red Fox
13 The Loss of the Brig
14 The Islet
15 The Lad with the Silver Button: Through the Isle of Mull
16 The Lad with the Silver Button: Across Morven
17 The Death of the Red Fox
18 I talk with Alan in the Wood of Lettermore
19 The House of Fear
20 The Flight in the Heather: The Rocks
21 The Flight in the Heather: The Heugh of Corrynakiegh
22 The Flight in the Heather: The Moor
23 Cluny’s Cage
24 The Flight in the Heather: The Quarrel
25 In Balquhidder
26 End of the Flight: We pass the Forth
27 I come to Mr Rankeillor
28 I go in Quest of my Inheritance
29 I come into my Kingdom
30 Good-bye
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 the 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 tomorrow 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
1
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 a while.
‘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 liked 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, superscribed 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 sixteen 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.’
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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 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 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.’
Kidnapped (Puffin Classics Relaunch) Page 1