Kidnapped

Summary

Kidnapped is narrated by David Balfour, a seventeen-year-old Lowland Scot who in June 1751, after his father's death, leaves the village of Essendean with a letter for the House of Shaws. The minister Mr. Campbell sends him off with a shilling, a Bible and a handwritten recipe for lily-of-the-valley water, and with the news that he is a Balfour of Shaws. The house proves half-built and cold, and its master, David's uncle Ebenezer, is a miser who fears him. On a stormy night Ebenezer sends David up an unfinished tower stair in the dark, and only a flash of lightning shows the drop where the steps end. Ebenezer then lures him to Queensferry, where the brig Covenant, under Captain Hoseason, carries him off to be sold as a servant in the Carolinas. On board, David witnesses the drunken mate Mr. Shuan beat the cabin boy Ransome to death. When the brig runs down a boat in the fog, the one survivor is Alan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite of the Appin Stewarts carrying rents to his exiled chief. The crew plots to kill Alan for his money belt; David warns him, and the two hold the round-house against the whole crew. The brig is wrecked on the Torran rocks, and David, alone, spends days on the tidal islet of Earraid before learning that he can wade ashore at low water. Crossing Mull and Morven, he arrives in Appin just as the king's agent Colin Campbell of Glenure, the Red Fox, is shot from ambush. David is seen beside Alan and both are hunted as accomplices. Their flight through the heather, down to the hiding place of the outlawed chief Cluny Macpherson, is a long trial of hunger, exhaustion and pride. Ill and resentful, David quarrels bitterly with Alan; when he collapses, Alan's tenderness ends the quarrel and seals their friendship. With help along the way they cross the Forth, and David finds the lawyer Mr. Rankeillor, who confirms that David's father was the elder brother and that the estate is his. Alan stages a ruse at the House of Shaws, Ebenezer admits paying Hoseason to kidnap the boy, and a settlement gives David two-thirds of the income. The friends part on the hill above Edinburgh, and David walks into the city to begin clearing Alan's name and the name of James Stewart, accused of the murder.

Plot or Argument

• Essendean to the House of Shaws (Ch. I-IV)

  David leaves home with Mr. Campbell's gifts, finds his uncle Ebenezer a frightened miser, and survives the unfinished tower stair.

• Kidnapped on the Covenant (Ch. V-VIII)

  Lured to Queensferry, David is shipped as a servant on Hoseason's brig and sees the cabin boy Ransome killed by the drunken Mr. Shuan.

• Alan Breck and the round-house (Ch. IX-XIII)

  The brig runs down a boat and picks up Alan Breck Stewart; David warns him of the crew's plot, and the two win the fight in the round-house.

• Wreck and the islet (Ch. XIV)

  Thrown ashore after the wreck on the Torran rocks, David lives miserably on Earraid until he learns the islet is joined to Mull at low tide.

• Through Mull and Morven to Appin (Ch. XV-XVII)

  David crosses the west Highlands, meets blind catechists and ferrymen, and witnesses the shooting of Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure.

• Flight in the heather (Ch. XVIII-XXIII)

  Hunted with Alan, David hides on a rock in the sun, crosses the moor of Rannoch, and rests in Cluny Macpherson's Cage.

• The quarrel and Balquhidder (Ch. XXIV-XXVI)

  Sick and proud, David provokes Alan almost to a duel, collapses, and is reconciled; he recovers among the Maclarens, Alan out-pipes Robin Oig, and they cross the Forth.

• Rankeillor and the reckoning (Ch. XXVII-XXX)

  The lawyer confirms David's right; Alan's ruse makes Ebenezer confess, the estate is settled, and the friends part at Rest-and-be-Thankful.

Characters

• David Balfour, narrator and protagonist

  A pious, stubborn, honest Lowland Whig whose loyalty and courage are tested by kidnapping, shipwreck and flight.

• Alan Breck Stewart, Jacobite companion

  A vain, brave, quick-tempered Highlander, loyal to his chief and to David, and the book's great comic and heroic figure.

• Ebenezer Balfour, uncle and villain

  David's miserly, fearful uncle who has kept the estate by wrong and tries first to kill and then to sell his nephew.

• Captain Hoseason, master of the brig Covenant

  A seaman respectable ashore and hard at sea, paid by Ebenezer to carry David off.

• Mr. Riach, second mate

  A drinking but kind-hearted officer who has David brought out of the hold when he is fevered.

• Mr. Shuan, first mate

  A drunkard who beats the cabin boy Ransome to death.

• Mr. Campbell, minister of Essendean

  David's father's friend, who sends him off with a Bible, advice and the news of his family.

• Mr. Rankeillor, lawyer at Queensferry

  A shrewd, kindly lawyer who confirms David's inheritance and helps arrange Ebenezer's confession.

• Cluny Macpherson, outlawed Highland chief

  A chief hiding since the Rising of 1745 in a hut on Ben Alder called the Cage.

• Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, the Red Fox

  The Crown's agent for forfeited Stewart lands, whose murder makes David and Alan fugitives.

Lessons

• Friendship across a deep divide

  David is a Lowland Whig loyal to King George and Alan a Highland Jacobite. Their friendship survives political difference because each keeps faith with the other in danger. Stevenson shows loyalty as something proved by deeds rather than shared opinions.

  • What do David and Alan disagree about, and what do they never disagree about?
  • Why does David refuse to leave Alan after the Red Fox is shot?
  • What finally ends the quarrel in Chapter XXIV?

• Pride on the road

  Exhaustion makes David sullen and Alan mocking, and their quarrel nearly ends in swords. Stevenson treats the scene with honesty: both are at fault, and humility on both sides is required to repair it.

  • Who starts the quarrel, and why?
  • Why does Alan apologize first?
  • What does David mean by bearing and forbearing?

• Justice against a usurper

  Ebenezer holds the estate unjustly and tries to remove the heir. David recovers his right through patience, a good lawyer and a trap that brings the truth to light, not by violence.

  • Why does Ebenezer fear David?
  • How does Rankeillor's settlement balance justice and mercy?

• Courage that grows

  David begins as a cautious young man who cries in the dark; in the round-house he fires into the attackers and later walks into Edinburgh to testify. Courage in the book grows by being exercised.

  • Is David braver at the end than at the beginning?
  • How does Alan's kind of courage differ from David's?

Context

Kidnapped is set in 1751, five years after the defeat of the Jacobite Rising at Culloden. The government had disarmed the Highlands, banned Highland dress and confiscated estates of rebel chiefs, whose tenants sometimes paid secret rents to chiefs in exile. The novel's central crime is drawn from the Appin Murder: Colin Campbell of Glenure, the Crown's factor on forfeited Stewart lands, was shot in May 1752, and James Stewart of the Glens was tried before a Campbell jury and hanged. Alan Breck Stewart was a real suspect who escaped to France.

Composition

Stevenson wrote the novel in 1885-1886 while living in Bournemouth. It was serialized in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886 and published as a book the same year. His dedication admits that he moved the murder a year and altered details for the story. The sequel Catriona (1893), called David Balfour in America, follows David's attempt to testify for James Stewart.

Reception

The book was praised at once and has remained among the most loved adventure novels in English. Many readers and critics, including Henry James, admired its prose and the portrait of Alan Breck. It has been filmed and dramatized many times and still shapes the popular image of the post-Culloden Highlands.

Comparisons

• treasure-island

  Stevenson's earlier sea story has a boy narrator and a charming dangerous man; Alan Breck is as vivid as Silver but loyal, and the book is more historical than fabulous.

• robinson-crusoe

  David's days on Earraid parody the Crusoe situation: alone on an island that turns out to be joined to the mainland at low tide.

• the-odyssey

  Both are journeys home to a stolen inheritance, with a usurper in the hall and a test of loyalty on the road.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Mr. Campbell's parting gifts and advice in Chapter I, and how David remembers them later.
• The tower stair in Chapter IV and what it tells David about his uncle.
• The round-house fight in Chapter X, and the difference between Alan's pleasure in battle and David's horror at having shot men.
• The moment in Chapter XVII when David stays with Alan though suspicion falls on both of them.
• The quarrel in Chapter XXIV: notice which words wound, and what ends it.

Key terms and names

Jacobite

A supporter of the exiled Stuart kings; Alan fought for Prince Charles Edward in the Rising of 1745.

Whig

In the novel, a Lowland Presbyterian loyal to King George and the Protestant succession, as David is.

Round-house

The cabin on the brig's deck where David and Alan stand off the crew.

Red Fox

The nickname of Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, the king's agent shot in Appin.

Cluny's Cage

The hidden hut on Ben Alder where the outlawed chief Cluny Macpherson lives.

Indentured servant

A worker bound by contract for years of labor; Hoseason means to sell David as one in the Carolinas.

Clan

A Highland kin group under a chief; the enmity of Stewarts and Campbells drives the political plot.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does Mr. Campbell give David before he leaves Essendean, and what does he tell him about his family?
2. Comprehension How does Alan Breck come aboard the Covenant, and why does the crew want to kill him?
3. Comprehension How is the truth about the kidnapping finally drawn out of Ebenezer?
4. Interpretation David and Alan support opposite kings. Why can they be true friends anyway, and where does their friendship nearly break?
5. Interpretation Alan is brave, generous and vain. Does his vanity make him less admirable, or more human?
6. Interpretation David is stuck on Earraid because he does not know about the tide. What does this episode suggest about knowledge, pride and despair?
7. Big Question What do we owe a friend whose cause we do not share?

Faith Connections

• Colossians 3:13 (Scripture)

  "Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another." David's words to Alan after the quarrel, to bear and forbear, echo this command.

• Proverbs 18:24 (Scripture)

  There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Alan, a stranger, is far truer to David than his uncle, his own kin.

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VIII (Great Conversation)

  Aristotle's highest friendship rests on loving the good in the other. David and Alan are drawn together by each other's courage and loyalty more than by advantage.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: David loses his home, his liberty and nearly his life through his uncle's greed. A stranger of an opposing party proves more loyal than his kin. Hardship tests their friendship to the breaking point, and humility restores it. Therefore the novel argues that faithfulness, not shared opinion or blood alone, is what makes a friend, and that justice can be recovered patiently through truth.

Rhetorical device: retrospective first-person narration in Scots-inflected English. David tells the story as an older man, and Alan's Highland speech, as in "am I no a bonny fighter?", sets the two voices apart while letting the reader hear their affection.

Debate: Resolved: that David was right to provoke the quarrel with Alan by defending the Campbells.

Memory Work

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

We’re neither one of us to mend the other--that’s the truth! We must just bear and forbear, man Alan

Writing Prompts

Essay: Compare Ebenezer Balfour and Alan Breck Stewart as guardians of David. Use the tower stair and the round-house as evidence and argue what the contrast teaches about kinship and loyalty.

Comparison with Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins admires Long John Silver and David Balfour loves Alan Breck. Compare these two attractive older men and argue why Stevenson makes one a betrayer and the other a true friend.

Medical Lens

The novel is closely observed about bodily hardship: seasickness and fever in the Covenant's hold, Mr. Shuan's drinking ending in a killing, hunger and exposure on Earraid and in the heather, and the illness that brings David to collapse during the quarrel. A Highland doctor treats him in Balquhidder. Readers interested in medicine can follow how hardship affects temper and judgment, which is the hinge of the quarrel scene.

• Chapter VII

  David lies fevered in the dark hold until Mr. Riach, who calls himself more than half a doctor, insists he be moved to the forecastle.

  Fever Infection Physicians Doctors
• Chapter VIII

  The drunken mate Mr. Shuan beats the cabin boy Ransome to death, and the officers' later behavior shows the drink and guilt aboard.

  Alcohol Death Dying
• Chapter I

  Mr. Campbell's third gift is a handwritten recipe for lily-of-the-valley water, distilled in sack, said to restore speech in palsy, ease gout and comfort the heart: a glimpse of household remedies of the period, from a plant now known to contain heart-active compounds.

  Pharmacology Poisons Humoral Medicine
• Chapter XIV

  On Earraid, David lives on raw shellfish and suffers cold, wet and despair.

  Starvation Nutrition
• Chapter XXIV-XXV

  Exhausted and ill, David collapses after the quarrel; a doctor is fetched in Balquhidder and he is bedridden for a week.

  Fever Infection Physicians Doctors

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Trace David and Alan's route on a map of Scotland, marking the wreck, Earraid, Appin, Rannoch, Ben Alder, Balquhidder and Queensferry.

• Essay

  Argue whether Alan Breck or Mr. Rankeillor does more to restore David's rights, and what each contributes.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Alan and James Stewart of the Glens on the night after the Red Fox is shot.

• Fiction

  Retell the round-house fight from inside Captain Hoseason's mind.

Further Reading

• Catriona, Robert Louis Stevenson

  The sequel; David tries to testify for James Stewart.

• Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

• Waverley, Walter Scott

  Scott's novel of the 1745 Rising, which Stevenson knew well.

• Robert Louis Stevenson, Claire Harman