I was disappointed by this sequel to Kidnapped. A big part of that is due to the large amount of Scots dialect used in this novel (which was at times even worse in the audiobook edition as at least the Kindle book had footnotes on some of the obscure terms!). For example,

"The solan keekit doon into Tam's face, and there was something unco in the creature's ee. Just the ae keek it gied, and back to the rope. But now it wroucht and warstl't like a thing dementit. There never was the solan made that wroucht as that solan wroucht; and it seemed to understand its employ brawly, birzing the saft rope between the neb of it and a crunkled jag o' stane."

Huh??!

I also found the adventure in this one less compelling and more far-fetched.

( )

Readers of Kidnapped will remember that it ends with the farewell between Alan Breck and young Davie Balfour. Davie was off "with a cold gnawing in my inside" to claim his fortune and to find a lawyer to help Alan's escape from the country after the Appin murder of Colin Campbell. Alan was to keep himself safe in the hills while awaiting news of the arrangements.

Stevenson added in parenthesis at the end of that novel :
Just there, with his hand upon his fortune, the present editor inclines for the time to say farewell to David. How Alan escaped, and what was done about the murder, with a variety of other particulars may some day be set forth. That is a thing, however, that hinges on the public fancy. The editor has a great kindness for both Alan and David, and would gladly spend much of his life in their society; but in this he may find himself to stand alone. In the fear of which, and lest anyone should complain of scurvy usage, he hastens to protest that all went well with both, in the limited and human sense of the word 'well'; that whatever befell them, it was not dishonour, and whatever failed them, they were not found wanting to themselves.

That was in 1886. The 'public fancy' must have wanted more than this brief assurance, for in 1892 Stevenson picked up the story once more in [David Balfour]. The last line of Kidnapped is The hand of Providence brought me in my drifting to the very doors of the British Linen Company's bank. However, despite his adventures with Alan, David alone in Edinburgh was as naive as when he first set out from the House of Shaws. The world of Edinburgh lawyers, bankers, and competing political interests threatened to prove too much for him, and consequently for Alan too.

That very first day, David was smitten with a young girl he saw following a prisoner through the streets. She went by the name of Catriona Drummond, for her real clan name was proscribed. David knew who she was immediately on hearing the name. As he got to know her, he found himself in a difficult position, for her father was in danger of being hanged on the one side, but on the other David was in Edinburgh to prevent James Stewart and the fugitive Alan from being hanged.

David set out for Inverary where James Stewart was being tried, hoping to clear the latter's name. After many adventures, he arrived while the jury was debating; not that there was any doubt whatsoever as to the outcome. As one of Stewart's lawyers put it: This is a scene, gentlemen, of clan animosity... There is nothing here to be viewed but Campbell spite and scurvy Campbell intrigue.*

What David learned of the workings of politics as he sat behind the scenes at the trial's conclusion and saw the aftermath, was how things work in the real world, that the process was not at all as good citizens would like to think. As he put it, I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics - I had seen it from behind when it is all bones and blackness; and I was cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A plain, private, quiet path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, when I might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of the road of temptation.

This is where Part I of the novel, or the "memoir" ends. Stevenson has used that favourite conceit of Scott's, that this is written by David the narrator, "and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson."

While Part I was certainly engaging, Part II is somewhat of a disappointment. David set off for Leyden to study, but found himself trying to help Catriona's father, a truly despicable man. The aftermath of the '45 was playing out on French soil as well as in Scotland. It seemed the treachery would never end. David did learn the art of compromise, a skill that left him never feeling quite right. There is one more round of derring-do with Alan. However, then the novel ends in a happily ever after fashion, which seemed a bit of a let down.

_________
* In the Historical Note to the Penguin edition of Kidnapped, editor Donald McFarlan says: It was only through the intervention of John Stewart of Ballachulish... that James was given access to a defence lawyer...and then only at the roadside... when James was being transported ...under armed guard. The trial was held before three judges including the Duke of Argyll himself. Of the 'fifteen good men and true' in the jury, eleven were Campbells. After a show trial involving a mountain of perjured evidence, the jury returned an unanimous "guilty" verdict; unsurprisingly James was sentenced to be hanged... for the sake of 'the future well-governing of these distant parts of Scotland'.

Now I know why Stevenson didn't write girls into his stories. ( )

'Catriona' is the lesser-known sequel to the classic 'Kidnapped', and follows the protagonist David Balfour's adventures. Here he seeks to right a wrong perpetuated in the first book, which plot closely follows reality; he also falls in love with Catriona, a highland girl whose father, James More, has landed in prison because of his connection to the murder at the heart of 'Kidnapped.' Spurred by a sense of honour and wishing to do the same thing, Balfour becomes involved in the intrigue, only to find himself kidnapped once again.

'Catriona' is a curious book, and well worth reading - especially be would-be writers like myself - because it represents an honest attempt by a great author to make much out of very little. There were enough loose ends in 'Kidnapped' to justify a sequel, but not enough left over to account for quite so long a book, and it is glaring by their absences what precisely is missing from this volume compared to the first. All of those landmark events and fantastic characters in 'Kidnapped' have their shadows here, but none exceed the triumph of the first. For those concerned with what might happen next to David Balfour, the book is worth a read, but for those who had not read the original, this is one sequel where the tale only works for those already fans. ( )

Sequel to Kidnapped ( )